The inclusion criteria for the selection of caregivers were: having some family ties (by blood or emotional ties) with the person with cancer; be identified as caregiver by the patient himself or with the help of a family when he was in health conditions that impeded him from providing the information; being older or equal to 18 years old; not receive salary as compensation to care; live daily with the individual with cancer; provide care to familiar with cancer for over two months; caregiver and family with cancer must reside in Maringa (it was decided to exclude cases of people with cancer, registered in WACN who lived in other cities, because of the difficulty of transportation to the interviews).
The period of data collection, the WACN contained the records of 273 patients with malignancies.
