COPING PATTERN AMONG THE CAREGIVERS OF PERSONS LIVING WITH CANCER

Cancer is a class of diseases in which a cell or a group of cells displays uncontrolled growth, invasion and sometimes metastasis. These three malignant properties of cancer differentiate them from being tumors, which are self-limited and do not invade or metastate. Most cancers form a tumor but some like leukemia do not. The branch of medicine concerned with study diagnosis, treatment and prevention of cancer is oenology. Cancer can affect people of all ages with the risk of most types increasing with age cancers are primarily an environmental disease due to lifestyle and environmental factors and due to genetics. The present study consisted of 300 caregivers of persons with cancer was selected based on simple random sampling, and with inclusion and exclusion criteria. Those patients satisfying the inclusion and exclusion criteria and attending both outpatient and inpatient services of cancer specialty hospital in KIDWAI Bangalore, Karnataka were selected randomly. The data was collected from the patients & caregivers of persons living with cancer who fulfill the inclusion/exclusion criteria were taken up for the study after their consent. The Coping Check List (Rao et al, 1989) was administered to understand the coping pattern. The interviews and the instruments were administered by research experts. This study concluded that there was poor coping were found in female caregivers, illiterate caregivers, caregivers of cancer patients underwent surgery, the person's not hearing about cancer, and other religion caregivers. So, it is imperative to design suitable intervention strategies to enhance the coping and other psychosocial issues of caregivers of patients living with cancer.