What do cancer patients' spouses know about the patients?

A large body of research shows that social support in general and of family members in particular plays an important role in determining cancer patients' quality of life. We assumed that the spouse's information about how the patient experiences the situation determines the spouse's ability to help. The present study was designed to examine how much the spouse knows about the attitudes and experiences of their husband or wife who is a cancer patient, and whether this knowledge depends on the questions' structure, disease duration, its severity, or level of patient's information about the disease and prognosis. A questionnaire with multiple-choice and open-ended questions assessing 13 domains (e.g., fears and worries concerning health, functioning in the family, and anxiety) was administered to patients and their partners. Subjects were 55 head-and-neck cancer patients, 40 men and 15 women, with disease stages I to IV, grade of tumors G1 to G3-4, and disease duration of 0.5 to 21 years. The results showed that correspondence between the patients' and their spouses' responses was very low, and was not affected by the structure of the questions or the disease's duration and severity. Correspondence was high only in patients informed about their disease. In the discussion, it was pointed out that when the patient is informed, communication channels in the family are opened and this brings about an increase in the spouses's information about the patient and hence in the spouse's ability to provide the patient the needed social support as a psychotherapeutic agent and a friend. The cancer nurse may play a crucial role in instituting the patient-spouse dialogue.