Learning Objective #1: The learner will be able to describe the direct and indirect costs of providing care to a family member with cancer.

Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to identify factors that may predict whether or not caregivers will change employment due to care demands.

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Although the link between providing care and changes in family caregivers’ emotional and physical health is well documented, less is known regarding the impact of providing care on caregivers’ employment.  The purpose of this analysis was to determine variables that predict whether caregivers changed employment as a result of providing care.  Lazarus and Folkman’s Stress and Coping model guided this cross-sectional, descriptive study involving 95 family caregivers of persons with a primary malignant brain tumor.  Logistic regression was used with data from telephone interviews – employment, changes in employment due to providing care, caregiver gender, depressive symptoms, burden, mastery, relationship to the care recipient, age, children in the home, available secondary caregivers, months since care recipients’ diagnosis, care recipient employment, and care recipients’ functional and neuropsychological status.  Caregivers were more likely to change employment soon after care recipients’ diagnosis (p=.002) and when care recipients required assistance with instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) (p=.01).  The odds of changing employment due to care demands also increased when caregivers were married to the care recipient (p=.03), reported that providing care was a burden on family finances(p=.01), and reported lower levels of mastery over the care situation (p=.03).  Older caregivers (p=.001) and those with higher levels of depressive symptoms (p=.05) were more likely to be employed full time.  In addition, the odds of being employed full time increased when care recipients required assistance with ADLs (p=.03) and when there were more children in the home (p=.05). Data are helpful in determining which subsets of caregivers are at risk for having to change employment due to care demands.  Results suggest that clinicians may assist caregivers in maintaining employment by offering strategies to assist with IADLs and implementing interventions to improve caregivers’ sense of mastery over the care situation, particularly at the time of diagnosis.