(Press-News.org) Loneliness and social isolation, which can have negative effects on health and longevity, are being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. More than half of surveyed adults with cancer have been experiencing loneliness in recent months, according to a study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
Studies conducted before the pandemic reported that 32 percent to 47 percent of patients with cancer are lonely. In this latest survey, which was administered in late May 2020, 53 percent of 606 patients with a cancer diagnosis were categorized as experiencing loneliness. Patients in the lonely group reported higher levels of social isolation, as well as more severe symptoms of anxiety, depression, fatigue, sleep disturbance, cognitive dysfunction, and pain. They were also less likely to be married or partnered, more likely to live alone, and more likely to have a lower annual household income.
The researchers note that while previous pre- and during COVID-19 studies found links between loneliness and the symptoms of anxiety, depression, fatigue, sleep disturbance, cognitive dysfunction, and pain, this study is the first to evaluate all of these symptoms in the same group of patients.
"Patients with cancer, as well as survivors, need to realize that feelings of loneliness and social isolation are very common during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to this sense of loneliness, they may be having feelings of anxiety, sadness, and fatigue, as well as problems sleeping and high rates of unrelieved pain--all at the same time," said lead author Christine Miaskowski, RN, PhD, FAAN, of the University of California, San Francisco.
Importantly, the study included individuals who were primarily white, well-educated, and had a high annual household income. "Given the racial/ethnic disparities associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, we hypothesize that the high symptom burden reported by the patients in our study will be higher in patients who are socioeconomically disadvantaged," said Dr. Miaskowski.
The investigators stressed that clinicians should ask patients about feelings of loneliness and assess for multiple co-occurring symptoms, and patients and survivors should not hesitate to report such symptoms to their primary care providers or oncologists. "Patients may warrant referrals to psychological services to assist with symptom management," said Dr. Miaskowski. "In addition, to decrease these feelings, patients and survivors can develop a schedule of social interactions; develop a structure to their daily activities; engage in regular exercise particularly in the outdoors; use stress reduction exercises; and eat a healthy diet."
May is Mental Health Awareness Month.
INFORMATION:
Additional Information
NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. A free abstract of this article will be available via the Cancer News Room upon online publication. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact:
Dawn Peters +1 781-388-8408 (US)
newsroom@wiley.com
Follow us on Twitter @WileyNews
Full Citations:
"Loneliness and symptom burden in oncology patients during the COVID-19 pandemic." Christine Miaskowski, Steven M. Paul, Karin Snowberg, Maura Abbott, Hala T. Borno, Susan M. Chang, Lee May Chen, Bevin Cohen, Bruce A. Cooper Marilyn J. Hammer, Stacey A. Kenfield, Kord M. Kober, Angela Laffan, Jon D. Levine, Rachel Pozzar, Kim Rhoads, Katy K. Tsai, Erin L. Van Blarigan, and Katherine Van Loon. CANCER; Published Online: April 27, 2021 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.33603).
URL Upon Publication: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/cncr.33603
Author Contact: Elizabeth Fernandez, senior public information representative at UCSF, at elizabeth.fernandez@ucsf.edu.
About the Journal
CANCER is a peer-reviewed publication of the American Cancer Society integrating scientific information from worldwide sources for all oncologic specialties. The objective of CANCER is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of information among oncologic disciplines concerned with the etiology, course, and treatment of human cancer. CANCER is published on behalf of the American Cancer Society by Wiley and can be accessed online.
Follow us on Twitter @JournalCancer
About Wiley
Wiley drives the world forward with research and education. Through publishing, platforms and services, we help students, researchers, universities, and corporations to achieve their goals in an ever-changing world. For more than 200 years, we have delivered consistent performance to all of our stakeholders. The Company's website can be accessed at http://www.wiley.com.
WASHINGTON, May 5, 2021 - 3D bioprinting can create engineered scaffolds that mimic natural tissue. Controlling the cellular organization within those engineered scaffolds for regenerative applications is a complex and challenging process.
Cell tissues tend to be highly ordered in terms of spatial distribution and alignment, so bioengineered cellular scaffolds for tissue engineering applications must closely resemble this orientation to be able to perform like natural tissue.
In Applied Physics Reviews, from AIP Publishing, an international research team describes its approach for directing cell orientation within ...
LAWRENCE -- Researchers at the University of Kansas have described a new species of fanged frog discovered in the Philippines that's nearly indistinguishable from a species on a neighboring island except for its unique mating call and key differences in its genome.
The KU-led team has just published its findings in the peer-reviewed journal Ichthyology & Herpetology.
"This is what we call a cryptic species because it was hiding in plain sight in front of biologists, for many, many years," said lead author Mark Herr, a doctoral student at the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum ...
"The findings of our study tell us where and when greenhouse gas is being most absorbed in Arctic waters." Says Friederike Gründger, who conducted the study as part of her post-doctoral research at CAGE.
The study, which was conducted on the shallow shelf west of Svalbard, took a closer look at communities of bacteria that use methane as an energy source and carbon substrate for growth. The results from the study show that these methane-oxidizing bacteria are highly affected by the specific underwater landscape and seasonal conditions in the study area.
"Several large depressions, up to 40m deep, are observed along the shallow shelf off Western Svalbard, ...
In 2005, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from residential energy use hit an all-time high in the United States. Each year since, emissions have dropped at an average annual rate of 2 percent.
In a study published in Environmental Research Letters, "Drivers of change in US residential energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, 1990-2015," a team of researchers from the Yale School of the Environment (YSE) outlined several factors that have contributed to this decrease, highlighting efficiencies in new home construction, energy consumption and household appliances, ...
(Philadelphia, PA) - For patients with chronic pain, ineffective treatments, lowered work productivity, and other factors often coalesce, fueling feelings of hopelessness and anxiety and setting the stage for even bigger problems, including substance use disorders. In 2017 alone, some 18 million Americans misused prescription pain relievers over the course of the previous year. In many of these instances, patients suffering from chronic pain became addicted to prescription opioids.
In addition to being highly addictive, many studies suggest that prescription opioids do not effectively control pain over the long term, and hence researchers ...
Many people with diabetes endure multiple, painful finger pricks each day to measure their blood glucose. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Sensors have developed a device that can measure glucose in sweat with the touch of a fingertip, and then a personalized algorithm provides an accurate estimate of blood glucose levels.
According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 34 million children and adults in the U.S. have diabetes. Although self-monitoring of blood glucose is a critical part of diabetes management, the pain and inconvenience caused ...
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, intense social distancing and lockdown measures were the primary weapon in the fight against the spread of SARS-CoV-2, but they came with a monumental societal burden. New research from the Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases and the College of Public Health at the University of Georgia explores if there could have been a better way.
Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the research analyzes more palatable alternatives to the kind of social distancing mandates that threw a wrench at how businesses, schools ...
A study published in July 2020 hypothesized a link between the presence of bradykinin, a well-known peptide, and severe cases of COVID-19. Vardan Karamyan, Ph.D., an associate professor and vice chair for the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, had not previously conducted or evaluated any research related to COVID-19. However, he found the article intriguing because it discussed bradykinin, one of three specific peptides with which his lab has much well-published experience.
The paper received a lot of attention in both the media and scientific literature, but as Karamyan read through it, he felt it failed to address an equally important part of a bigger picture: the likely ...
A new service piloted at Penn Medicine allowed a proportion of patients to avoid hospitalization by providing them with greater support after visiting the emergency department. The vast majority of the patients enrolled in the service - nearly 9 out of 10 - did not need to return to the hospital for care in the month that followed their initial visit. The study was published in Healthcare.
"The culture is shifting where we realize that hospitalization is not always the best option for patients - particularly patients with chronic illness," said one of the study's lead authors, Austin Kilaru, MD, an emergency physician at Penn Medicine. "We need to find better ways of helping patients not just get healthy in a hospital, but stay healthy at ...
Leather is an ever growing multi-billion dollar industry requiring more than 3.8 billion bovine animals - equal to one for every two people on earth - to sustain production each year. And while the products - clothing, shoes, furniture and more - can be quite elegant and durable, the environmental impact of leather production has been severe, leading to deforestation, water and land overuse, environmental pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Researchers at Tufts University School of Engineering set out to find an alternative to leather, with similar texture, flexibility and stiffness, yet focused on materials that are sustainable, non-toxic, and friendly to the environment. It turns out, we have been wearing that material ...