BACKGROUND

Globally, cancer remains to be one of the leading causes of mortality and poses significant burden to patients and families. A growing body of evidence suggests that early palliative care results in more favorable patient and caregiver outcomes compared to standard oncology care alone. 

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to determine the effects of early palliative care on caregivers of adult cancer patients in terms of quality of life, psychological distress, and satisfaction with care. 

METHODS

Systematic database searches in PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane library and Clinicaltrials.gov registry was conducted to select eligible studies for this review. Keywords, limit fields and Boolean operators were used for the search. Qualitative and quantitative analyses through the Review manager 5.4 software were done to compare quality of life, psychological distress, and satisfaction with care among caregivers given early palliative care vs. caregivers given standard oncology care. 

CONCLUSION

This review revealed inconclusive evidence on the benefits of early palliative care on caregiver outcomes when compared to standard care. We reviewed outcomes of early palliative care including quality of life, psychological distress, and satisfaction with care, but evidence remains unclear due to paucity of studies. Larger, high-caliber trials with more robust evidences, refinement of measurement tools catered to caregivers with higher sensitivity, and standardization of EPC protocol are needed to detect effect of EPC. 

Human ; Caregivers ; Cancer ; Neoplasms ; Quality Of Life ; Systematic Review