El-Jawahri A, et al. - Researchers conducted a study to gauge effects of early integrated palliative care (PC) on caregivers of patients with lung and gastrointestinal cancer. This study reported that early involvement of PC for patients with newly diagnosed lung and gastrointestinal cancers resulted in improvement in caregivers’ psychological symptoms. Positively impacting the experience of caregivers, the benefits of early, integrated PC models in oncology care extended beyond patient outcomes.

Methods

• For patients who were newly diagnosed with incurable lung and noncolorectal gastrointestinal cancers and their caregivers, a randomized trial of early PC integrated with oncology care versus oncology care alone was performed.
• Furthermore, the early PC intervention focused on addressing the needs of both patients and their caregivers.
• Family or friends who would likely accompany patients to clinic visits were eligible caregivers.
• In addition, the intervention entailed at least monthly patient visits with PC from the time of diagnosis.
• It was found that caregivers were encouraged.
• However, not required, to attend the palliative care visits.
• In order to gauge caregiver mood and QOL, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Medical Health Outcomes Survey Short-Form were used.

Results

• In this study, two hundred seventy-five caregivers (intervention n=137; control n=138) of the 350 patients participated.
• Although not anxiety subscale or QOL at week 12, the intervention led to improvement in caregivers’ total distress (HADS-total adjusted mean difference=-1.45, 95% confidence interval [CI] -2.76 to -0.15, p=.029), depression subscale (HADS-depression adjusted mean difference=-0.71, 95% CI -1.38 to -0.05, p=.036).
• No differences were noticed in caregivers’ outcomes at week 24.
• Significant intervention effects were indicated by a terminal decline analysis on caregivers’ total distress (HADS-total), with effects on both the anxiety and depression subscales at 3 and 6 months before patient death.