Cancer caregivership

Accumulating evidence has supported the view that cancer affects not only the patients/survivors but also their family members. The impact on various aspects of the family caregivers' quality of life (QOL) is significant throughout the trajectory of the illness and beyond the patients' survivorship. Significant gaps, however, remain in our understanding of the effects of family caregiving beyond the time of diagnosis and treatment. In addition, theoretically and methodologically rigorous research on various aspects of the family's QOL, including not only the psychological but also the physical, spiritual, and behavioral adjustment to cancer in the family, across the full spectrum of caregivership, remains sparse. Studies testing the usefulness of family-based interventions across the trajectory of the illness are also needed.