Objective: to associate the social determinants of health and quality of life of caregivers of children with cancer.
Methods: a cross-sectional study conducted in a paediatric cancer centre in Fortaleza, Brazil, with 176 participants in November and December 2013. Data were collected using a questionnaire with social determinants of health, and quality of life was assessed using the World Health Organization Quality of Life-Bref. The determinants were correlated with the averages of the quality of life domains using analysis of variance (ANOVA).
Results: there was a statistically significant association between the domains of social relations and education (p = 0.01792) and between the psychosocial domain and the gender of the caregiver (p = 0.01901). The male caregivers that were highly educated, younger, married, stay-at-home dads from the interior had a better quality of life.
Conclusion: the study sheds light on the influence of social determinants of health in the quality of life of caregivers of children with cancer.