SLEEP QUALITY AND DEPRESSION LEVEL IN CANCER CAREGIVERS

Introduction: receiving a cancer diagnosis is a significant life event for both the patient and family. depression is a normal response when a family member receives a diagnosis of cancer. however, this response may be exacerbated by other factors such as chronic sleep loss. objective: the purpose of this study was to describe the sleep problems and depression levels of cancer caregivers and to explore the relations between these two variables. methods: survey data which is descriptive type were collected by survey questionnaire, pittsburgh sleep quality index and beck depression index from 102 practicing caregiver. results and conclusion: the mean age of the caregivers was 39.49±11.55 years. most of the caregiver (85.3%) expressed sleep problems, and 40.2% of them were experiencing depressive symptoms. significant strong positive correlations were found between caregiver total sleep problem scores and caregiver level of depression (r=0.531, p=0.000). these findings show that caregivers of persons with cancer are at risk for clinical depression. for this reason, it is important for nurses to be cognizant of relation between sleep problems and depression.