Family environment, hobbies and habits as psychosocial predictors of survival for surgically treated patients with breast cancer

Many psychosocial factors have been reported to influence the duration ofsurvival of breast cancer patients. We have studied how family members,hobbies and habits of the patients may alter their psychosocial status.Female patients with surgically treated breast cancer diagnosed between1986 and 1995 at the Tochigi Cancer Center Hospital, who providedinformation on the above-mentioned factors, were used. Their subsequentphysical status was followed up in the outpatients clinic. The Coxregression model was used to evaluate the relationship between the resultsof the factors examined and the duration of the patients' survival,adjusting for the patients' age, stage of disease at diagnosis andcurability, as judged by the physician in charge after the treatment. Thefollowing factors were revealed to be significant with regard to thesurvival of surgically treated breast cancer patients: being a widow(hazard ratio 3.29; 95% confidence interval 1.32-8.20), having a hobby(hazard ratio 0.43; 95% confidence interval 0.23-0.82), number of hobbies(hazard ratio 0.64; 95% confidence interval 0.41-1.00), number of femalechildren (hazard ratio 0.64; 95% confidence interval 0.42-0.98), smoker(hazard ratio 2.08; 95% confidence interval 1.02-4.26) and alcoholconsumption (hazard ratio 0.10; 95% confidence interval 0.01-0.72). Theseresults suggest that psychosocial factors, including the familyenvironment, where patients receive emotional support from their spouse andchildren, hobbies and the patients' habits, may influence the duration ofsurvival in surgically treated breast cancer patients.