Cancer in Adolescents and Young Adults and the Socioeconomic and Mental Health Consequences in Family Caregivers

Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer are predominantly treated in outpatient settings, presenting significant challenges for family caregivers, including parents, siblings, and partners/spouses, within their homes.

Unfortunately, there is limited insight into the comprehensive extent and duration of the cancer caregiving burden on family caregivers of AYAs with cancer.

We aim to (1) investigate short- and long-term socioeconomic changes, mental health outcomes, and dispensation of medicines to treat mental disorders among family caregivers of AYAs with cancer, (2) examine whether the potential effect on the study outcomes varies by the clinical characteristics of AYAs with cancer, and (3) explore whether adverse socioeconomic and mental health outcomes experienced by family caregivers might influence the health and survival of AYAs with cancer and to what extent.

For this purpose, we will use several Swedish national registries assembled at the Center for Primary Health Care at Lund University in this international collaboration.

We will employ an interrupted time series (ITS) analysis, a valuable quasi-experimental design, to analyze pre- and post-changes in specific outcomes following cancer diagnosis in the AYAs, focusing on their mothers, fathers, siblings, and partners separately.

The results may be used for better patient and familial counselling, long-term patient care, as well as the initiation of timely social support and interventions.