Quality of life and well-being in caregivers are usually partly neglected since 
all attention is focused on patients and the way they react to the illness. 
Carers also usually neglect their own needs, especially when the illness of the 
patient is as complex as a brain tumor. The aim of this study is to investigate 
how caregivers deal with a diagnosis of brain tumor in their relatives and how 
they manage their quality of life and psychosocial well-being. One hundred 
primary caregivers of patients with brain tumors were interviewed and were asked 
to fill in self-administered questionnaires detecting multidimensional levels of 
quality of life, anxiety, depression, and psychosocial reaction to the patient's 
illness. Data were related with some functional and psychosocial information 
collected about the patient's disease. Caregivers try to react to the illness of 
their relatives by mobilizing their physical reaction and growing their 
self-esteem, but they live with a clinically significant impairment of their 
quality of life, and experience a deep level of anxiety and depression. The 
caregivers' burden appears mainly in their ability to provide care and in 
financial strain. The length of disease and the functional status of patients 
significantly influence caregivers' psychosocial well-being. Despite the 
appearance they want to show their affected relatives, caregivers suffer from 
deep limitation in their quality of life. The relevance of caregivers' burden 
suggests the importance of psychological support to improve reaction to the 
illness.