A randomized control trial of the effectiveness of online Mindfulness-Based Cancer recovery program on psychological well-being, caregiver burden and resilience in cancer patients' caregivers

Background: Living with cancer patients causes a lot of psychological sufferings to their caregivers. Many caregivers lose their resilience and experience periods of mental distress during the long and tumultuous period of treatment. It seems that just as it is important to address the psychological problems of patients themselves, it is also important to help reduce the psychological suffering of caregivers. This study aims to apply online mindfulness-based cancer recovery (E-MBCR) program to improve psychological well-being, increase resilience and reduce caregivers' burden. Method: This is a clinical trial study. Fifty-three caregivers were recruited via purposeful sampling from three hospitals and were randomly divided into experimental (n=28) and control groups (n=25). The experimental group received a 9-week online format MBCR intervention. In order to examine the research variables, the Connor and Davidson resilience scale (CURS), World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5), and Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) were used. Both groups were assessed at three phase, baseline, post-test and three months follow-up. Results: The results of repeated measures analysis of variance showed that the treatment had improved the dependent variables in the experimental group. This effect was such that CDRS (F=19.55, P=0.00, eta 2=0.32) and WHO-5 (F=38.47, P=0.00, eta 2=0.48) increased and ZBI scores (F=41.31, P=0.00, eta 2=0.49) decreased. Conclusion: E-MBCR can be an effective way to improve the psychological states, capacity to cope and quality of the inner world of cancer patients' caregivers and can significantly reduce the mental burden of living and caring of this population during this difficult time.