Evaluating the effects of dyadic intervention for informal caregivers of palliative patients with lung cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis

AimTo investigate the effects of dyadic intervention on anxiety, depression, care burden and quality of life in informal caregivers of palliative patients with lung cancer.BackgroundInformal caregivers of palliative lung cancer patients bear a large number of negative emotions during the process of caring for the patients. Dyadic intervention has the potential for improving them but the overall effect is unclear.DesignA systematic review and meta-analysis.Data sourcesAll randomized controlled trials were retrieved from the following databases until 4 May 2023: Web of Science, Embase Ovid, PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Randomized Controlled Trials, Weipu, Wanfang and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure databases.Review methodsThis review was performed by Stata 12.0 and Review Manager 5.3.ResultsThirteen randomized controlled trials were in accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria (n = 1807). The results revealed that dyadic intervention significantly improved family caregivers' anxiety, depression and caregiver burden of palliative patients with lung cancer. There was no significant difference in quality of life between the dyadic intervention group and family caregivers who did not receive the dyadic intervention.ConclusionsDyadic intervention positively impacts the experience of family caregivers of palliative patients with lung cancer. What is already known about the topic?Informal caregivers of palliative lung cancer patients bear a large number of negative emotions during the process of caring for the patients.The overall effect of dyadic intervention for informal caregivers of palliative patients with lung cancer is unclear on account of different results reported in existing studies.What this paper adds?Dyadic intervention could improve family caregivers' anxiety, depression and caregiver burden of palliative patients with lung cancer, even though it did not improve quality of life.Dyadic intervention positively impacts the experience of family caregivers of palliative patients with lung cancer.The implications of this paper:Medical personnel can provide personalized dyadic interventions based on the assessment of the palliative patient and their informal caregivers, such as providing illness understanding, symptom management and addressing psychosocial.Findings can be applied as a reference to help informal caregivers prevent potential emotional disturbance.