Family Caregivers for Cancer Patients in Thailand

This integrative review was conducted to describe findings from Thai studies concerning family caregivers for cancer patients. Twenty-three studies that were published from 1994 to 2009 were considered. There were 15 quantitative studies and 8 qualitative studies. The stress and coping model developed by Lazarus and Folkman was the most popular theory that was used to guide the studies. The variables that were explored in the quantitative studies consisted of social support, stress, coping, caregiver burden, quality of life (QOL), and others. The qualitative findings revealed that there were several themes such as the following: the meaning of being family caregivers for cancer patients, the meaning of care, the experiences of caregivers, and the problems and needs of family caregivers in the Thai context. The evidence from the 23 studies reviewed showed that the state of knowledge of cancer caregivers in the Thai context is at an early stage compared with the state of knowledge in Western countries. More research needs to be done to explore the concepts related to negative and positive outcomes of caregiving

The effectiveness of program developed from cognitive-experiential self-theory and life skills technique on adolescent coping with stress

ABSTRACT Many methodologies to decrease stress in adolescents have been introduced and implemented. However, it seems that the problems in their physical, mental, emotional, and learning conditions still exist, especially for long term. The proposed program with some booster was used to solve the long run problems. To examine the effectiveness of program developed from cognitive-experiential self-theory and life skills technique on adolescent coping with stress. A quasi-experimental research in two groups is used to modify theoretical concepts of cognitive-experiential self-theory and life skills technique on adolescent coping with stress. The students of secondary schools in Nakhon Sawan Province Thailand were the target population. Two schools were randomly chosen, one for control and the other for experiment. The sample size of 84 students was randomly selected and requested to be volunteers and 44 volunteers were trained on concept of thinking, strategies to resolve the problem and control emotion for 5 days and booster in school for 9 months in every fortnight and was measured 5 times, before and after interventions at 3 rd , 6 th and 9 th months. We used independent t-test, paired t-test, analysis of variance and covariance for data analysis. There were no difference in the mean of summation of knowledge, attitude and practice of pre-test score between treatment and control group (P=0.124). After the training program, the volunteers showed significant improvement of knowledge, attitude and practice (P<0.05) and the level of stress decreased was statistically significant (P<0.05). The results indicated that the training program with modify theoretical concepts of cognitive -experiential self-theory and life skills technique on adolescent enabled the participants to improve knowledge, attitude and practice in coping with stress