The Impact of Partnership Status and Social Support on Health Related Quality of Life Outcomes in Men with Prostate Cancer

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The Impact of Partnership Status and Social Support on Health Related Quality of Life Outcomes in Men with Prostate Cancer

Compared to patients with good SS, those with poor SS were less likely to have grade 3–5 toxicity, especially for non-hematological toxicity (adjusted OR = 0.52, p = .02). Patients who did not have someone to take them to the doctor “most” or “all of the time” were less likely to have grade 3–5 non-hematological toxicity compared to patients who had someone to take them to the doctor most or all of the time (adjusted OR = 0.32, p = .02).

Our study showed that patients with poor SS, especially those with less availability of someone to take them to doctors were less likely to have a documented grade 3–5 non-hematological toxicity.

The UCLA Prostate Cancer Index Short Form was used to quantify urinary, sexual and bowel habits in the 2 domains of bother and function

We examined the relationship between partnership status and social support and its effect on longitudinal health related quality of life outcomes in underserved, low income men with prostate cancer.

We prospectively analyzed quality of life outcomes across partnership status and the social support of each patient enrolled in a state funded program for free prostate cancer treatment. Physical health and mental health were measured with the RAND Medical Outcomes Study Short Form. We compared 4 levels of partnership and social support dyads with a repeated measures analysis while controlling for patient characteristics.

A total of 223 men were eligible for inclusion in the study. Of the 70 patients with a partner 54 (77%) listed their partner as their only support member and https://hookupswipe.com/lesbian-hookup/ the remaining 16 listed their partner and 1 or 2 children as their support group. There were few differences in the major quality of life domains of urinary, bowel and bladder function and bother. Physical and mental health scores did not differ by partnership status or social support.

While we hypothesized that being partnered and having increased social support would have a positive effect on quality of life, we did not find this association in our longitudinal analysis. We propose that patterns of confiding in others and integration of a nurse case manager are highly gender based, and may provide possible explanations for our findings.

Mortality, cancer incidence, and survival in parents after bereavement

For example, the cohort of Israeli parents, who lost an adult son in war or a car accident, showed no significant association between bereavement and incidence of any cancer . Similar to other studies [16,41,44–46], we also failed to show any association between bereavement and cancer survival in parents, although it has been suggested that psychological stress may lead to reduced cancer survival . Similar results were obtained in the few mothers (n = 50) who were diagnosed with cancer before their bereavement and in 268 mothers diagnosed after their loss.

The study objective was to investigate whether child loss is related to mortality, cancer incidence, and cancer survival in parents.

We used a population-based birth cohort (1964–1976) in Jerusalem and ascertained mortality (average follow-up of 39.1 years) and any cancer (average follow-up of 35.6 years) among parents who lost a child (2838 mothers and 2532 fathers) and among nonbereaved parents (38,212 mothers and 36,433 fathers). We also assessed mortality among parents with cancer. Time-dependent Cox models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

Overall mortality rates among bereaved parents were modestly increased when compared with nonbereaved parents (HR = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.05–1.32 in mothers; HR = 1.10, 95% CI: 1.01–1.20 in fathers). Hazard models indicated a significant relationship between bereavement and deaths from coronary heart disease in mothers (HR = 1.90, 95% CI: 1.23–2.95) and circulatory causes in both parents (HR = 1.69; 95% CI: 1.22–2.34 in mothers and HR = 1.25; 95% CI: 1.02–1.54 in fathers). Bereavement was not associated with parental risk of cancer disease and with survival from cancer. The association between bereavement and parental overall mortality was similar in the different parental sociodemographic characteristics. We observed a decrease in HRs for parental mortality associated with bereavement, with increasing time since the death of the child (HRs = 9–10, 0–3 years; HRs = 0.9–1.0, 9+ years; Pheterogeneity ?3 ? 10 ?32 ). A similar decrease in HRs was observed for parental survival from cancer (HRs = 6.7–8.7, 0–3 years; HRs = 0.9–1.0, 9+ years).