Hardiness and Caregiving-Satisfaction of Cancer Caregivers in Uganda

Abstract

This study’s objective was to assess the role of hardiness on caregiver satisfaction among caregivers of patients with cancer in Uganda. A cross-sectional study was carried out at Uganda Cancer Institute and Mbarara regional referral hospital between June 2019 and December 2021. Participants were informal adult caregivers of patients that had been diagnosed with cancer at the two sites. Their socio-demographic attributes were recorded using a questionnaire that was developed while scores on hardiness and caregiving satisfaction were measured using the adjusted hardiness and adjusted caregiver reaction assessment scales respectively. The tools were subjected to exploratory factor analysis. Composite indices were generated and used to determine quantitative measures of the three dimensions of hardiness and care giver satisfaction. The derived scores were then used in the subsequent analyses of the effect of hardiness on caregiver satisfaction using Stata 14 software. After controlling for all the key covariates (namely; patient’s age, sex and stage of cancer; care giver’s sex and , education, respondent’s age, education level, country of origin, religion, and burnout), all the domains of hardiness had significant influence on the first dimension of caregiving satisfaction (i.e. f=,1.27 and pvalues=,0.2308 respectively) On the second dimension, the F-scores and p-values of commitment, challenge, and control were 1..88, and 0.0293, 1.88 and 0.0293 and 1.88 and 0.0293 respectively. In conclusion, the three domains of hardiness (commitment, control and challenge) do affect the first two aspects of caregiving satisfaction among informal caregivers in cancer care. Those with high hardiness scores are more likely to report higher levels of satisfaction while giving care to patients with cancer