Quality of Life in Partners of Young and Old Breast Cancer Survivors.
Andrea A Cohee, Silvia M Bigatti, Cleveland G Shields and 4 others
PMID 29538019WHAT IT FOUND
Partners of younger breast cancer survivors reported better physical and sexual function but lower marital satisfaction and overall quality of life than partners of older survivors.
Depression was generally low, but some met a depression threshold, so ask about mood and relationship strain.
Key findings
01Partners of younger breast cancer survivors reported better physical function and less sexual difficulty, but lower marital satisfaction, more hyperarousal, and lower overall quality of life than partners of older survivors.
02Overall quality of life was predicted by different factors in each group: physical functioning, depressive symptoms, marital satisfaction, parenting satisfaction, and personal resources for partners of younger survivors; depressive symptoms, spirituality, parenting satisfaction, and spouse support for partners of older survivors.
03A minority of partners met the clinical depression threshold: 7.6% of partners of younger survivors and 6.5% of partners of older survivors.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional and non-experimental, so it cannot show that breast cancer at a younger or older age caused these partner differences. Partners were grouped by the survivor's age at diagnosis, not by the partner's own age, and partner age ranges overlapped. The analysis excluded partners of survivors diagnosed at ages 46 to 54, so it may miss an important group. There was no information about partners' well-being before the cancer diagnosis, so pre-existing differences cannot be ruled out. The sample was mostly Caucasian and highly educated, and income was not collected, so results may not represent the general population. Many differences that were statistically significant were too small to meet the study's threshold for meaningful difference.
Declared interests
The article's publication types list NIH extramural research support, and the authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that these differences prove a cause or that a specific partner intervention works. The study was cross-sectional and non-experimental, so it cannot show cause, and many differences were too small to meet the study's threshold for meaningful difference.