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Abstract
Introduction It is projected that 17 730 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia in 2017, with 3114 of these predicted to be fatal. Caregiving for a person with cancer can significantly impact caregivers’ physical and mental health. Many caregivers feel ill-prepared for this role, especially when care involves complex medical needs accompanied by the psychological challenges experienced following a cancer diagnosis.
Methods and analysis This study employs a convergent, parallel, mixed methods design combining an online survey with an optional interview. Eligible, consenting participants will be invited to participate in a survey to examine (1) participants’ unmet needs, (2) challenges experienced throughout the cancer journey, (3) perceived self-efficacy to determine participants’ level of confidence in undertaking caregiver tasks, (4) views regarding suitable content to include in a caregiver training intervention, (5) preferred method of intervention delivery (ie, website, smartphone application and/or interactive video), and (6) preferences for the timing of delivery of the intervention content (ie, ability to choose a module, access to the entire content or have a set order in which they receive the information). Caregivers will be eligible to participate if they (1) are male, (2) have previously cared for or are currently caring for a woman with breast cancer, (3) are aged over 18 years, and (4) do not currently suffer from a cognitive impairment or mental health condition (ie, depression, anxiety). Data analysis will include examination of differences in psychological outcomes and needs based on demographic variables, and mediation analysis to explore whether self-efficacy mediates the relationship between challenges, unmet needs and distress. Qualitative data will be analysed using thematic analysis.
Ethics and dissemination The study was reviewed and approved by two human research ethics committees within Australia. We anticipate two to three publications may be developed from the study.
- caregiver
- breast cancer
- intervention
- unmet needs
- challenges
- online
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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Footnotes
Contributors JVL contributed to the study conception and design, attaining the funding to support the project, and preparing documents for ethical approval. She contributed content to the original manuscript and has assisted with revisions. MG contributed to the preparation of documents for ethics approval, including study materials (survey, patient information and so on) to support data collection, managed the liaison with recruitment partners, managed the data collection, and contributed to the preparation and review of the manuscript. AG contributed to the study conception and design, attaining the funding to support the project, and preparation and review of the manuscript.
Funding This work was supported by an Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research grant. MG and AG are supported by Cancer Institute NSW grants. CONCERT is funded by Cancer Institute NSW, with contributions from the University of New South Wales, Western Sydney University, University of Wollongong, Illawarra and Shoalhaven Local Health Districts, and the Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Obtained.
Ethics approval The study was reviewed and approved by the Human Research Ethics Committees of South Western Sydney Local Health District (SWSLHD, approval number: HREC/16/LPOOL/34) and Monash University (MUHREC, approval number: 2016-1007).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.