The Role of Social Support and Caregiver Burdens among Parents of Children with Cancer

Cancer is the most common disease in the present century and the number of affected children is increasing. It can cause many problems for family caregivers. This study assessed the correlation between social support and care-giving burden among parents of children with cancer.

This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted by convenience sampling method on 230 parents (115 mothers and 115 fathers) referring to Oncology Clinic and Oncology Ward  in Yazd Shahid Sadoughi Hospital (Iran) from March to August 2020 (Covid-19 Pandemics). Researchers asked the patients' parents to answer the questionnaires. The data were gathered by the demographic questionnaire, Care Burden Scale (CBS), and Social Support Scale and analyzed with SPSS21 using Pearson correlation coefficient, Chi-square, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) (P=0.05).

The mean of the care burden of parents was 52.19 2.48 and the social support of them was higher than that (78.78± 13.21). There was no significant correlation between social support and domains of general strain (P=0.90), disappointment (P=0.52), emotional involvement (P=0.53), environment (P=0.95), and isolation (P=0.40) of the care burden.

There was no correlation between social support and care burden in the parents of children with cancer.  Other factors may be involved in care burden of the parents. More research  is needed with more samples in the future.