Depression and Quality of Life Among Caregivers of Pediatric Cancer Patients

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Abstract
This study aimed to assess the prevalence of depression, depressive symptoms, and quality of life among caregivers of pediatric cancer patients and the associated risk factors. In total, 73 participants were recruited for this cross-sectional study in King Abdullah Specialist Children Hospital. Two self-administered questionnaires were used, the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ9) and World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL), to assess the depressive symptoms as well as the prevalence of clinical depression and quality of life, respectively. Data were analyzed using SPSS (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) to assess the level of depression and quality of life and the associated factors using Fisher’s exact and Mann-Whitney tests. It was found that 90.4% were females and 9.6% were males, with 49.3% being between the ages of 31 and 40. Regarding the level of depression, 47.80% had mild depression. There were no significant associations between the baseline characteristics and the level of depression. Gender was significantly associated with all four domains of quality of life, age was significant in physical health and environmental domains, duration of illness was significant only in the physical health domain, while education level was found to be not significantly associated with any of the domains. This study found that nearly half of the participants had mild levels of depression, and the four domains of the WHOQOL were significantly affected by several risk factors. We recommend further research into this topic with larger sample sizes, as well as a follow-up assessment of caregivers for a more accurate representation of caregivers’ depression and quality of life. We recommend that in addition to the assessment of pediatric cancer patients, caregivers must also be assessed due to the burden associated with the task of being a caregiver.

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