Physical and Emotional Health of Caregivers for People Who Have Had Stem Cell Transplants

There are approximately 65.7 million unpaid caregivers in the United States with an estimated 8 percent providing care to someone with cancer. Although benefit-finding has been reported, providing care to a spouse or loved one with cancer is stressful and can have negative consequences for an individual s psychological and physical health. In cancer caregivers, studies have documented negative outcomes including symptoms of fatigue, impaired sleep quality, poor quality of life, anxiety and depression. These outcomes are of particular concern when cancer patients receive intense treatment such as hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) where caregivers are embedded in a treatment trajectory that can extend 4 12 months. In dementia caregivers, additional outcomes have been reported including poor health habits and impaired immunity. In addition, longitudinal studies have also reported caregivers have an increased risk of morbidity and mortality, particularly from cardiovascular disease.

The stress response is initiated in the brain, which determines both the physiological and behavioral responses to an event. The normal physiologic response is complex and dynamic process by which the body responds to daily events in an effort to maintain equilibrium. If the stress becomes overwhelming for the individual, either due to the number or magnitude of stressors, the burden or overload can lead to dysregulation of biologic mediators and behavioral changes (poor sleep, eating or drinking too much, smoking, lack of physical activity) that can exacerbate disease (e.g. cardiovascular disease). A recent study in cancer caregivers demonstrated marked changes in neurohormonal and inflammatory processes in the year following a loved one s cancer diagnosis which may place the caregiver at risk for morbidity and mortality from disease. The relationships among the physiologic and psychological responses as well as behavioral changes to stress have not been explored in HSCT caregivers.

What is clear from the literature is that caregiving is stressful, and it appears to increase one s risk for morbidity and mortality, particularly by increasing cardiovascular risk. What is less clear is what behavioral, psychological, physiological and clinical changes are associated with the process of caregiver for individuals undergoing allogeneic HSCT, a particularly long and stressful experience. The purpose of this exploratory, pilot study is threefold: to longitudinally examine physiological, behavioral and clinical factors in HSCT caregivers during the acute transplant recovery period, to compare those factors in HSCT caregivers to non-caregivers, and to explore the associations among physiological, psychological, behavioral and clinical factors in HSCT caregivers.

Subjects will be accrued to this protocol if they are adult caregivers for a transplant recipient participating in their first allogeneic HSCT protocol at the Clinical Center. An equal sample of healthy volunteers that are non-caregivers will be recruited to serve as control subjects. A sample of 40 subjects (20 caregiver and 20 non-caregiver volunteers) will be recruited to capture the essence of the experience and adequately explore this population.

Each caregiver participant will have data collected prior to the recipient s HSCT (day 0), during the first week of outpatient visits following the recipient s initial discharge from the inpatient setting, and finally 6 weeks post the transplant recipients initial discharge from the hospital. Questionnaires will capture the psychological and behavioral outcomes and include: Caregiver Reaction Assessment (caregivers only), Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II, Perceived Stress Scale, The UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3), General Self-Efficacy Scale, and PROMIS Short Forms for Anxiety, Depression, Sleep disturbance and Fatigue. Clinical variables (e.g. vital signs) and physiological variables (e.g. cortisol) will be collected along with the questionnaires during the clinic visit and following history and physical exam by a Licensed Independent Practitioner (LIP). A sample of non-caregivers will be minimally matched for age, gender, and race/ethnicity, and complete all study procedures except the questionnaires that are specific to the caregiver s experience (e.g. caregiver burden). There will be no long term follow-up after the study participation period. Exploratory, hypothesis generating analyses will be performed using parametric and non-parametric techniques.