Background Cancer impacts both patients and their family caregivers. Evidence suggests that caregiving stress, including the strain of taking on a new role, can elevate the risk of numerous health conditions, including high blood pressure (BP). However, the caregiver’s psychosocial experiences, including their interpersonal relationship with the patient, may buffer some of the negative physiological consequences of caregiving. Purpose To examine the influence of psychosocial contextual variables on caregiver ambulatory BP. Methods Participants were 81 spouse–caregivers of patients with advanced gastrointestinal or thoracic cancer. For an entire day at home with the patient, caregivers wore an ambulatory BP monitor that took readings at random intervals. Immediately after each BP reading, caregivers reported on physical circumstances (e.g., posture, activity) and psychosocial experiences since the last BP measurement, including affect, caregiver and patient disclosure, and role perceptions (i.e., feeling more like a spouse vs. caregiver). Multilevel modeling was used to examine concurrent and lagged effects of psychosocial variables on systolic and diastolic BP, controlling for momentary posture, activity, negative affect, and time. Results Feeling more like a caregiver (vs. spouse) was associated with lower systolic BP at the same time point. Patient disclosure to the caregiver since the previous BP reading was associated with higher diastolic BP. No lagged effects were statistically significant. Conclusions Caregivers’ psychosocial experiences can have immediate physiological effects. Future research should examine possible cognitive and behavioral mechanisms of these effects, as well as longer-term effects of caregiver role perceptions and patient disclosure on caregiver psychological and physical health.

中文翻译：

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关系和沟通变量对晚期癌症护理人员动态血压的影响

背景 癌症影响患者及其家庭护理人员。有证据表明，看护压力，包括承担新角色的压力，会增加许多健康状况的风险，包括高血压 (BP)。然而，看护者的社会心理体验，包括他们与患者的人际关系，可能会缓冲看护带来的一些负面生理后果。目的 研究心理社会背景变量对照顾者动态血压的影响。方法 参与者是 81 名晚期胃肠癌或胸部癌患者的配偶-照顾者。在与患者一起在家的一整天中，护理人员戴着动态血压监测仪，以随机间隔读取读数。每次 BP 读数后，护理人员立即报告身体状况（例如，姿势、活动）和自上次 BP 测量以来的社会心理体验，包括情感、照顾者和患者披露以及角色认知（即感觉更像是配偶与照顾者）。多级建模用于检查社会心理变量对收缩压和舒张压的并发和滞后影响，控制瞬时姿势、活动、负面影响和时间。结果 感觉更像一个照顾者（与配偶相比）与同一时间点较低的收缩压有关。自上次血压读数以来，患者向护理人员披露与较高的舒张压有关。没有滞后效应具有统计学意义。结论 看护者的社会心理体验可以产生直接的生理影响。未来的研究应该检查这些影响的可能的认知和行为机制，