Male caregivers with cancer diagnosed partners : an exploratory study

This study was an examination of the relationship between factors of emotional and psychological vulnerability, psychosocial and demographic variables, and barriers to caregiving thought to be related to the coping process of male caregivers. To investigate this relationship, 74 male caregivers of cancer diagnosed females volunteered to complete a demographic questionnaire and eight diagnostic instruments. These volunteers were recruited through the auspices of the Cancer Patient Support Program of the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Variables measured by the diagnostic instruments included level of self-esteem, locus of control, sex-role orientation, quality of premorbid martial relationship and quality of marital relationship since the diagnosis of cancer, level of depressive mood, barriers to caregiving, and coping strategies used by each subject. The participants in the study had known of their wives's cancer diagnosis for at least 10 days