Nick Dionne-Odom on the Impact of Family Caregivers on Survival

Nick Dionne-Odom, PhD, of University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing discusses the impact that family caregivers have on patient survival.

Based on a secondary analysis of a large, randomized controlled trial of an early palliative care intervention introduced at the time of advanced cancer diagnosis, Dionne-Odom and other researchers found that having a family caregiver was associated with decreased survival among patients.

In addition, the analysis found that patients who were unmarried and did not have a family caregiver tended to have a higher survival rate than those who were married.