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Association between aspects of social support and health-related quality of life domains among African American and White breast cancer survivors

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Abstract 

Purpose

Social support is associated with breast cancer survivors’ health-related quality of life (HRQoL). More nuanced information is needed regarding aspects of social support associated with different HRQoL domains among diverse populations. We assessed the association between emotional/informational and tangible support and five HRQoL domains and evaluated race as an effect modifier.

Methods

African American and White women (n = 545) diagnosed with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer completed a survey that assessed sociodemographic, clinical, and psychosocial factors. We assessed bivariate relationships between emotional/informational and tangible support along with overall HRQoL and each HRQoL domain.We tested interactions between race and emotional/informational and tangible social support using linear regression.

Results

The sample included African American (29%) and White (71%) breast cancer survivors. Emotional/informational social support had a statistically significant positive association with emotional well-being (β = .08, p = 0.005), social well-being (β = 0.36, p < 0.001), functional well-being (β = .22, p < .001), breast cancer concerns (β = .16, p = 0.002), and overall HRQoL (β = .83, p < .001). Similarly, tangible social support had a statistically significant positive association with emotional well-being (β = .14, p = 0.004), social well-being (β = .51, p < .001), functional well-being (β = .39, p < .001), and overall HRQoL (β = 1.27, p < .001). The interactions between race and social support were not statistically significant (p > 0.05).

Conclusions

Results underscore the importance of the different social support types among breast cancer survivors, regardless of survivors’ race.

Implications for Cancer Survivors

Population-based interventions can be standardized and disseminated to provide guidance on how to increase emotional/information and tangible support for all breast cancer survivors by caregivers, health providers, and communities.

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Data availability

The authors welcome inquiries from investigators interested in possible collaboration and use of de-identified data from this study. The data has not been placed into a public repository.

Code availability

Code will be made available upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This project was funded by the National Cancer Institute (5R01 CA154848; Sheppard PI; MCC P30 CA016059; Sheppard PI).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oncology, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA

    Alejandra Hurtado-de-Mendoza, Minna Song, Kristi D. Graves, Sara Gómez-Trillos & Katherine Lopez

  2. Fisher Center for Hereditary Cancer and Clinical Cancer Genomics, Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Washington, DC, USA

    Alejandra Hurtado-de-Mendoza, Kristi D. Graves & Sara Gómez-Trillos

  3. Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

    Felisa Gonzales

  4. The Colorado Trust, Denver, CO, USA

    Felisa Gonzales

  5. Department of Health Behavior and Policy, VCU School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, USA

    Esther J. Holmes, Reuben Retnam & Vanessa B. Sheppard

  6. Division of General Internal Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Megan C. Edmonds

  7. Office of Health Equity and Disparities Research, VCU Massey Cancer Center, Richmond, VA, USA

    Vanessa B. Sheppard

Authors
  1. Alejandra Hurtado-de-Mendoza
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  2. Felisa Gonzales
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  3. Minna Song
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  4. Esther J. Holmes
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  7. Sara Gómez-Trillos
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  8. Katherine Lopez
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  9. Megan C. Edmonds
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  10. Vanessa B. Sheppard
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Alejandra Hurtado-de-Mendoza, Vanessa B. Sheppard, Felisa Gonzales. Formal Analysis: Felisa Gonzales, Reuben Retnam. Funding acquisition: Vanessa B. Sheppard Writing—original draft: Alejandra Hurtado-de-Menodoza, Felisa Gonzales, Minna Song. Writing—review and editing: Esther J. Holmes, Kristi Graves, Sara Gómez-Trillos, Katherine Lopez, Megan C. Edmonds, Vanessa B. Sheppard.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alejandra Hurtado-de-Mendoza.

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Ethics approval

Study procedures were approved by the Georgetown University Institutional Review Board (IRB), Henry Ford Health Systems, and Kaiser Permanente.

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All participants provided informed consent.

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Yes.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Felisa Gonzales made contributions to this paper while a Cancer Prevention Fellow in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA.

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Hurtado-de-Mendoza, A., Gonzales, F., Song, M. et al. Association between aspects of social support and health-related quality of life domains among African American and White breast cancer survivors. J Cancer Surviv 16, 1379–1389 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11764-021-01119-2

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