Enforced social dependency and its relationship to cancer survival

This study examined relationships between survival time and enforced dependency in a group of patients with cancer.

Data are reported from 141 patients with solid tumor cancers who participated in an interview around the time of their discharge from the hospital. Measures included medical history, demographic characteristics, and five measures of psychosocial status, including enforced personal and social dependency. Patients were followed 2 to 4 years later to ascertain survival status and, for those who had died, dates of death. Psychosocial variables were used as potential predictors in a multivariate model of survival time, which also included variables measuring severity of illness.

Enforced personal and social dependency, but not the other psychosocial variables, were found to contribute significantly to the model of survival time.

These findings suggest that survival of patients with cancer might be improved by an intervention targeted at enforced social dependency.