Health and resource burden of a cancer diagnosis on the caregiver: an analysis of administrative claims data.

Purpose: Cancer diagnosis is known to affect the family; however, administrative claims data are not commonly used to evaluate the broader impact of cancer diagnosis. This study was designed to evaluate the feasibility of using claims data to explore the impact of cancer diagnosis on the caregiver.

Methods: IBM Marketscan data were used to identify eligible cancer patients, who were required to have a second adult over the age of 18 (defined as "caregiver" for this study) covered by the same the healthcare policy.