This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Spousal mood impacts risk for depressed mood in cancer survivors
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Spousal depression and poor health-related quality of life may increase the risk for depressed mood among cancer survivors, according to the results of a longitudinal study.
The risk may be particularly high among women, the study also found.
Spouses experience positive and negative outcomes as caregivers of cancer survivors; however, little research has evaluated the impact spousal well-being has on cancer survivors, according to study background.
Kristin Litzelman, PhD, cancer prevention fellow at the NCI, and K. Robin Yabroff, PhD, MBA, epidemiologist and program director of the Healthcare Delivery Research Program at the NCI, conducted a longitudinal analysis of 910 cancer survivors and their spouses. The researchers evaluated data collected between 2004 and 2012 from the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey and matched the survivors and their spouses with a cancer-free cohort of couples. Cancer survivors tended to be slightly older than their spouses (mean age, 61.29 years vs. 60.44 years) and experienced more non–cancer related health conditions (mean number of health conditions, 1.26 vs. 1.14).
Researchers excluded couples in which the spouse also had a cancer-related health problem.
The participants self-reported depressed mood, psychological distress, and mental and physical health-related quality of life at two intervals, approximately 11 months apart.
In analyses controlled for sociodemographics, cancer type, survivor treatment status and depressed mood at the first interval, researchers sought to evaluate the impact of psychosocial factors present at the first interval on depressed mood at the second interval.
Overall, approximately 10% of cancer survivors and 7% of spouses reported a depressed mood at the second interval. Four percent of survivors and 3% of spouses did not report a depressed mood at the first interval but reported depression at the second interval.
Three percent of survivors who reported a depressed mood at the second interval had a spouse who reported a depressed mood at the first interval.
Depressed mood increased among cancer survivors at the second interval if their spouse reported a depressed mood at the first interval (OR = 4.27; 95% CI, 2.01-9.07). This association was particularly significant among women cancer survivors (OR = 9.4.9; 95% CI, 2.42-37.2).
Researchers observed a 30% decrease in the risk for depressed mood in survivors at the second interval among those whose spouses reported positive mental (OR = 0.72; 95% CI, 0.53-0.97) and physical (OR = 0.68; 95% CI, 0.53-0.87) health-related quality of life at the first interval.
The researchers noted inverse associations between survivor psychosocial factors and spousal depressed mood tended to be smaller and did not reach statistical significance.
In analyses stratified by treatment status, spousal depressed mood and mental health-related quality of life had a greater effect among couples with survivors who were off treatment. Further, survivor mental health-related quality of life and depressed mood at the first interval also had a significant association with spousal depressed mood at the second interval among couples with survivors off treatment.
The researchers acknowledged several limitations of their study, including the lack of information regarding spousal relationships and other potentially confounding factors. Further, the researchers identified the exclusion of same-sex and unmarried couples as a limitation.
“We were surprised that the effects of the spouses on the survivors were so much larger in this study than the effect of survivors on their spouses,” Litzelman said in a press release. “We expected to see more of a reciprocal relationship … Our research highlights that spouses need to take care of themselves not just for their own sake, but also for the sake of the cancer survivor. Our findings also suggest that when caring for cancer survivors, clinicians may want to assess the well-being of spousal caregivers.” – by Cameron Kelsall
Disclosure: The study was funded by the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program of the NCI. The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts