Cancer Caregiver’s Nursing Initiative (CNI)

Funding Source: National Cancer Institute & Michigan State University

Project Coordinator: Greg Cline, PhD

The Cancer Caregiver Nursing Initiative (CNI) was designed to examine whether a specific cancer care intervention program would help cancer patients and their caregivers implement plans of care that enabled the patient to proceed through chemotherapy with less physical and emotional morbidity and with the use of fewer unscheduled services, and whether the caregiver would be less anxious, burdened and depressed by care and would be more effective than caregivers who receive conventional care.

MPHI-CDMTR administered a series of 4 telephone surveys with both cancer patients and their caregivers who were referred to the cancer care intervention program from several different sites. The surveys collected information such as symptom experience, daily living activities, health care treatments, service utilization, employment, and expenditures using a variety of standard survey instruments (for example, the SF-36). In addition, MPHI-CDMTR utilized this longitudinal survey data in a series of analyses to assess the impact of the cancer care intervention program.

Project Type: Evaluation, Research