Social Support and burden in mothers of children with cancer

암환아 어머니의 사회적지지와 부담감

The purpose of the study was to identify the degree of social support and burden in mothers of children with cancer, and to determine a strategy of an effective social support utility for burden relief in these mothers. The subjects of this study were consisted of mothers of cancer children, registered at a'C'University affiliated hospital in Taejon. The data was collected from July 1 to August 31, 1994. Three instruments were used to collect the data : a semi-structured interview questionnaire which was developed by the researcher was used to identify the content of the mother's burden, a Visual Analogue Scale(VAS) that had a 10cm horizontal line was used to measure the degree of mother's burden and the PRQ part I & part Ⅱ were used to measure the degree of mother's social support. The content of mother's burden collected through in depth interviews was analyzed using content analysis. Also burden and social support data were analyzed by SAS program. The result of this study were summarized as follows : 1. The data on burden content from the interview were categorized as psychological, physiological, family interaction with maternal role, financial burden and personal interaction with social relational burden. 2. The degree of burden measured by VAS had a mean of 8.04(range from 0.5 to 10). 3. The score for social support measured by PRQ part Ⅱ had a mean of 88.9(range from 71 to 113). The highest scores was for reassurance of worth. The lowest score was for opportunity for nuturance. Most of the 15 mothers received the greatest amount of support from their sisters, spouse, friends, neighbors, relations, priest were perceived as eaningful resource person. 4. The correlation coefficient of burden and social support was somewhat negative correlation but no statistical significance(r=-.072). Therefore, a further study is necessary to repeat the qualitative research for exploring factor to be affected family caregiver's burden according to disease proceeding stage. On the basis of the results from this study, future research will be promoted valid and reliable tool development. Through this study, nurses understand and assess the individual psychologic burden and further it would be recommendated to produce professional education program for pediatric oncologic specialist nurse.