Caregiving for Metastatic Prostate Cancer Is Nearly a Full-Time Job
Caregivers spend an average of 30 hours per week caring for patients with metastatic prostate cancer, researchers reported in study findings (https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.2022.40.6_suppl.054) published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
The researchers analyzed data for 707 patients from the United States and Europe in the Disease-Specific Programmes database, including various health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) assessments such as the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy–Prostate (FACT-P). More than 40% of patients reported having a caregiver, most often a partner or spouse (> 80%).
Caregivers spent a mean of 31.6 hours per week providing care or patients with hormone-sensitive cancer (n = 376) and 28.9 hours per week for patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (n = 331). FACT-P subscale scores were 18.2 for social, 14.7 for emotional, 13.6 for functional, and 19.7 for physical well-being in patients with hormone-sensitive cancers and 17.7, 14.0, 12.7, and 18.5 for those with castration-resistant cancers. Patients with castration-resistant cancers reported the lowest HRQOL scores and highest pain scores.
“Our findings suggest an unmet need for HRQOL in patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer and metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer and also a need for greater caregiver support in these patients,” the researchers concluded.
Find recommended strategies for supporting caregivers in ONS’s Caregiver Strain and Burden Guidelines (https://www.ons.org/pep/caregiver-strain-and-burden).