Trial Information

Finding Balance: The Experience of Hope for Bereaved Caregivers of Palliative Cancer Patients

Research devoted to determining the efficacy of bereavement interventions remains a top
priority. The development of theory-based, acceptable and feasible psychosocial
interventions would begin to address the needs of family caregivers. A prominent theory of
coping with bereavement, Stroebe and Schut's Dual Process Model, describes oscillation
between loss-oriented and restoration-oriented coping; having a balance between these
processes predicted more positive outcomes for older bereaved spouses. Similarly, the
process of "finding balance" emerged as a first step in the search for new hope in the PI's
grounded theory research with older bereaved family caregivers. They described the
importance and difficulty of "finding balance" as they recovered from caregiving and
struggled to find a new meaning and purpose for their lives after the loss of a spouse to
cancer. An intervention focused on "finding balance" provides an innovative and promising
approach to guiding the development of a theory-based psychosocial intervention for family
caregivers who become bereaved. In clinical work a highly focused writing intervention has
shown important benefits (personal communication, Dr. Robert Neimeyer, March 4, 2009). A
validated tool to measure the effectiveness of an intervention to find balance does not
exist, however valid existing measures of hope, grief, and an inventory of balance based on
the Dual Process Model will be used as proxies. Therefore, the overall purpose of this study
is to develop and pilot-test a theory-based psychosocial supportive "finding balance"
intervention for older, bereaved spousal caregivers of a palliative cancer patient.