Aims: Family and friends provide vital support to people with cancer but often report feeling unsupported themselves. This study investigated rural caregivers’ experiences of accessing support for their health and wellbeing while caring for someone with cancer.
Methods: Through semi-structured interviews, 20 rural caregivers described their experiences seeking support for their health and wellbeing while caring for someone with cancer, including what support was, or would have been, helpful. Interview transcripts were analysed using content analysis to identify types of support sought and what aspects of support were helpful or unhelpful.
Results: Rural caregivers reported seeking support for their health and wellbeing across medical and psychosocial domains. Caregivers’ responses reflected facilitators and barriers to seeking support as well as the benefits and challenges associated with accessing support (i.e., what was helpful and unhelpful). Facilitators to seeking support included convenient access to support services while staying in a major city, telehealth options, and being included in patient care discussions. Barriers included geographical isolation while travelling for treatment, relationship strain, and caregivers’ needs for support not being acknowledged or understood by medical staff or social networks Benefits of accessing support included help with managing daily responsibilities and links to additional avenues of support. Challenges included delays in receiving support, inadequate duration of support, and the lack of lived experience by care providers.
Conclusions: To optimise rural caregivers’ access to support for their health and wellbeing, support services should be prompt and flexible in delivery, simple to navigate, integrated with patient care, improve caregivers’ ability to cope, provide access to additional avenues of support, and reduce caregiver burden.