U.S. research team “The greater the loneliness, the higher the risk of death… Counseling and support are needed.”
A study found that among survivors of cancer treatment, those who felt a lot of loneliness had a 60% higher risk of death compared to survivors who felt less or not at all lonely.
Researcher Zhao said, “Cancer diagnosis and treatment can have long-term negative effects on health, negatively impact cancer survivors’ social relationships and cause loneliness,” and added, “Loneliness, the feeling of being isolated, is the most common concern among cancer survivors.” He pointed out.
“There are currently more than 18 million cancer survivors in the United States, and that number is expected to increase to 22 million by 2030,” he said, adding, “We must address this important issue now.”
In this study, the research team measured the level of loneliness they felt using the UCLA Loneliness Scale among 3,447 cancer survivors aged 50 or older who participated in a nationally representative panel survey of the Health and Retirement Study from 2008 to 2018, and assessed their survival status by 2020. A follow-up investigation was conducted.
The UCLA Loneliness Scale Version 3 scores 1 to 3 in response to various questions about how lonely you feel.
The research team calculated the total score by adding up the scores of each question and divided the participants into four groups (low/no loneliness, mild loneliness, moderate loneliness, and severe loneliness) according to the total score.
As a result, there were 1,402 people (24.3%) in the low/no loneliness group, 1,445 people in mild loneliness, 1,418 people in moderate loneliness, and 1,543 people in severe loneliness.
As a result of analyzing the risk of death during the follow-up period of a total of 5,808 person-years (one person-year is the value of observing one person for one year), the risk of death was higher for survivors who reported a lot of loneliness compared to survivors who reported little or no loneliness. The more severe the condition, the greater the risk of death.
The group of survivors who felt the most loneliness had a 67% higher risk of death compared to the group who felt the least lonely after adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics.
“There is a need to select cancer survivors who feel lonely and provide social support to those in need,” said researcher Zhao. He said that integration of survivor management could be a way to do this.
◆ Source: Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Jingxuan Zhao et al., https://jnccn.org/
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