Relationships among self-esteem, ego-resilience, and caregiver burden among families of children with hematologic and oncologic disease: A cross-sectional study

Background: Pediatric hematology and oncology disease is a physically and emotionally demanding health condition for families. High self-esteem and ego-resilience among caregivers, which have recently gained increased recognition, might help ease caregiver burdens. Few studies, however, have simultaneously investigated the relationships between self-esteem, ego-resilience, and caregiver burden among caregivers of children with hematologic and oncologic disease.Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between caregiver burden, self-esteem, and ego-resilience and examine whether ego-resilience plays a role in mediating the relationship between self-esteem and caregiver burden among family caregivers of children with hematologic and oncologic disease.Design: Descriptive correlational study.Setting: The outpatient clinic of the department of pediatric hematology and oncology at a flagship university hospital in a metropolitan city in South Korea.Participants: The sample comprised 109 primary family caregivers of children with hematologic and oncologic disease. Convenience sampling method was used.Methods: The participants completed the Ego-Resiliency Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Family Burden Questionnaire. One-way analysis of variance, independent t-tests, and correlation analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS 25.0. The mediating effect of ego-resilience was estimated using the PROCESS macro and bootstrap method in SPSS.Results: Caregiver burden showed significant negative associations with self-esteem and ego-resilience, with moderate effect sizes (r = -.391 and -0.361, respectively, p = .001). Ego-resilience mediated the relationship between self-esteem and caregiver burden (b = -0.019; 95 % bias-corrected bootstrap confidence interval -0.035 and -0.001). Conclusions: Self-esteem and ego-resilience may lessen caregiver burden among families of children with hematologic and oncologic disease, and self-esteem of caregivers tends to promote their ego-resilience. Therefore, self-esteem and ego-resilience should be improved among family caregivers to reduce their caregiver burden.