When my husband was diagnosed with Stage IVb oral cancer I knew that he had a very difficult time ahead of him, but I had no idea how challenging it would be for me as his caregiver. Almost everything I learned about being a caregiver I attribute to this forum. The caregiver experience is complex and there are relatively few studies that examine brief interventions that might benefit caregivers. In my professional life, I am a professor at the University of Maryland and focus my research on psychosocial aspects of health. I am currently conducting (along with one of my doctoral students) a research study investigating the benefits of a brief, on-line expressive writing intervention for caregivers. The University of Maryland IRB approves this study and I have Brian Hill�s permission to post the link to the study on the OCF forum (and Christine B�s help in facilitating this).

If you are a caregiver (currently spending about 3 hours daily on medical and other activities including tasks your loved one previously managed), I hope that you will read more about this study and consider participating in our efforts to learn more about the caregiving experience. The link to the study is below and following the link is a brief description of the study.

Best, Sophie H. (Mary Ann Hoffman, Ph.D.)


https://umdsurvey.umd.edu/SE/?SID=SV_cx9yds8u0Vs3vtH


Online Study for Caregivers

Are you an unpaid caregiver for a loved one? Do you provide care on a daily basis for at least 3 hours per day? Are you at least 18 years of age? If you answered �yes� to all of these questions, you may be eligible to participate in a study conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland.

This study explores participants� caregiving experiences through 2 brief surveys and 3 brief writing exercises completed on-line and at times that are convenient for you. Some people find writing helpful as a way to record what happens to them or as a way to talk about difficult experiences. There has been great interest in recent years in the benefits of expressive writing to understand important and challenging experiences in your life.

To participate, you must meet the eligibility requirements of the screening questionnaire.


Thank you!

Mary Ann Hoffman, Ph.D
Professor and Co-Director: Counseling Psychology
Fellow, American Psychological Association
Licensed Psychologist, Maryland and D.C.
University of Maryland, College Park
[email protected]

Amy Fuhrmann, M.S.
Doctoral Candidate
Counseling Psychology
University of Maryland, College Park
[email protected]

Dear caregivers,

If you are interested in participating in the caregiver study described above, we have modified the requirements for the number of hours per day (on average) that one spends in caregiving activities from 3 hours to any amount of time. We realize that the hours may vary from day to day and we didn't want to exclude caregivers. Also, we are interested in caregivers for any type of health-related concern, not just oral cancer. Feel free to share the link with other caregivers that you know. We will stop seeking volunteers around October 16th so please consider participating soon!

Thanks so much- Mary Ann Hoffman (Sophie H.)

This study is nearing its end. If you are an active caregiver, I urge you to PLEASE help by taking a few minutes to complete this important study. Feel free to pass it along to other caregivers you know too. This can help others in the future who will go down this same path.


Thank you!!!

https://umdsurvey.umd.edu/SE/?SID=SV_cx9yds8u0Vs3vtH

Bringing this back up to the top.

Caregivers.... Time is running out on this study. PLEASE help other caregivers by taking a few minutes to complete the above study. From what Ive heard writing this is also very beneficial to the caregiver too.

Thank you very much.

This study is ending on Nov 1st.

Caregivers, please help out future fellow caregivers by taking a few minutes to do the survey.

Thank you!!!

I want to thank any of the OCF forum members who participated in this study! We solicited participation from many different caregiver groups/types and have begun our initial analysis of our data and the findings look to be incredibly interesting and to tell a more complex "story" of the caregiver experience because we have both qualitative and quantitative data. I will provide a brief overview once that is complete. We have decided to leave the link for the study open for now so people may continue participating in the near future.

Thanks so much and the "silver lining" regarding my husband's diagnosis and treatment for oral cancer is that I got to learn about the caregiver experience first-hand (I'm a person who believes that life experiences - even difficult ones- deepen one's humanity) and I got to learn about the world of on-line support forums and how incredibly helpful they can be.

Warmly- Sophie H. (Mary Ann Hoffman)