Introduction: During the challenging time of COVID-19 pandemic, the oncology community faces extraordinary issues to enhance the mental health of people with cancer and their caregivers. The family caregivers of patients receiving comforting care experience high levels of anxiety and depression. There is a strong necessity to assess and treat depression and anxiety in caregivers of cancer patients to increase the quality of life.
Aim: The aim of the present study was to investigate the anxiety and depression among caregivers of cancer patients in the Delhi-NCR region, India.
Methods: The sample consisted of 127 caregivers of cancer patients. Participants completed Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Descriptive statistics, as well as inferential statistics (the Pearson correlation coefficient), were used to analyse the obtained data in SPSS.
Results: The study revealed that the majority of caregivers were male (66.9%), also the majority of the cancer patients were male (61.4%). The mean ages of caregivers and patients were 33.28 ± 10.24 and 27.71 ± 21.47 years, respectively. Among all the cancer patients, 22% (n=28) were in age range of 1–5 years, 15.7% (n=20) were in age range of 6–15 years, 17.3% (n=22) were in age range of 16–25 years, 10.2% (n=13) were in age range of 26–35 years, 18.1% (n=23) were in age range of 36–50 years and 16.5% (n=21) were above 50 years old. 70.9% (n=90) had blood cancer. Female caregivers of the cancer patients were more anxious as compared to male caregivers and was not statistically significant with the gender of the caregivers (p>0.05). But, male caregivers of the cancer patients were more depressed as compared to female caregivers and was not statistically significant with the gender of the caregivers (p>0.05). Depression among caregivers has a strong positive correlation with anxiety among caregivers and is statistically significant at a 0.01 level of significance.
Conclusion: Female caregivers of the cancer patients were more anxious as compared to male caregivers whereas male caregivers of the cancer patients were more depressed as compared to female caregivers. Further investigation of the factors that may affect caregivers’ psychological state is required to better identify parameters that may predict it.