Support for Bereaved Cancer Caregivers

Bereaved friend and family caregivers have taken on the burden of end-of-life care for

patients with cancer who die in hospice care at home. Bereavement can be emotionally

devastating, especially to those who have put aside their own needs to support the dying

individual. Supporting bereaved CGs' emotional health and general well-being is a

critical need. The proposed pilot study will evaluate the acceptability and feasibility

of a 6-week low-tech nature meditation intervention aimed at supporting bereaved

caregivers' who are in the first 6 months since the patients' death. The intervention,

based on the mutually supportive role that meditation practices and nature have been

shown to promote wellbeing, will be developed capitalizing on the strengths of the

research team's early intervention work involving patients with advanced cancer and their

caregivers. For this single group longitudinal study, Aim 1 will focus on the development

of 6 nature-based healing meditation (NBHM) auditory modules available via the study

website to facilitate bereavement (grief) recovery and assessed on parameters of directed

attention, grief, and QOL (including parameters of depression/anxiety).

The 2nd aim will then evaluate acceptability and feasibility of the 6-week program of

both content and delivery methods (numbers eligible vs. number consented; numbers

consented vs. numbers completed; number of weeks using the intervention) for the

intervention modules. We will then conduct semi-structured interviews with a small

diverse representative sample of caregivers to evaluate benefits, satisfaction, and

challenges in more depth. Fifty-five home-based cancer caregivers who recently

experienced the death of their patient will be recruited from Hospice of Michigan.

Testing will occur at baseline (Time 1; study week 0), at the intervention end (Time 2;

week 6), and (Time 3; study week 12). This research targets a supportive caregiver

intervention that will be flexibly delivered on-line for use at the caregiver's

convenience. Once feasibility and acceptability for this new intervention to support

bereaved caregivers are addressed, a larger scale randomized control trial will be

sought.