The Harvard Gazette notes that, ultimately, being married may greatly improve a cancer patients outcomes – good news for people in relationships who are going through treatments, using data from the National Cancer Institutes Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End-Results Program. The researchers conducted retrospective analyses on 734, 889 individuals diagnosed with cancer from 2004 to 2008. A study published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology, for instance, noted that married patients tended to get their cancer diagnosed early, when it is most successful; received more appropriate treatments; and lived longer than patients who were unmarried. A study of prostate cancer patients found married men lived significantly longer after diagnosis, with a lower risk of dying of their cancer, compared with those who were divorced, single, separated, or widowed. As noted above, although all of the studies described here looked at individuals who were officially married, it is plausible that the treatment outcomes will be similar for anyone diagnosed with cancer who lives in a committed relationship, be it same-sex, de facto, or living with a large, but close, family unit.
Not every relationship is robust enough to withstand the cancer diagnosis, and details of the course of cancer may also influence that. Not only must cancer patients fight the cancer and side effects from the treatments, but the cancer may test relationships.
For survivors of a child’s cancer, or those with cancer in their adult life, a personal or familial history of cancer may influence the response of the potential partner when they learn of a survivors cancer. For example, a widow or divorcee who has had a past partner who has had a cancer history might react differently from someone who has not had that same experience.
Receiving a diagnosis of cancer also has devastating emotional consequences on a caregiver spouse or partner. A diagnosis of cancer can impact all aspects of the patients life – including his or her relationship with his or her spouse or partner. A cancer diagnosis also has practical consequences, adversely impacting employment security, finances, the underlying dynamics of the home, and so on. Even if the cancer sufferer is able to keep up a relatively normal level of functioning while receiving treatment, there are still ways the marriage can be affected.
The observations reinforce the notion that marriage problems following breast cancer are mostly found in couples who are already struggling. Among patients with breast cancer, women reporting lower marital satisfaction (assessed using only one questionnaire) in the first 3 months of diagnosis were at a persistently higher risk for additional marital difficulties than women reporting higher satisfaction. Among patients with breast cancer alone, we assessed the relationship between marital satisfaction, assessed at post-diagnosis, and occurrence of further marital dissolution, lower marital satisfaction, and emotional difficulties with spouse. Sometimes, the shock of the cancer diagnosis prompts partners in troubled relationships to examine the sources of their problems and to seek counseling.
Talking to a therapist, who is impartial and has experience working with other cancer patients, can help couples vent, reaffirm the feelings they are experiencing are normal, and help offer helpful coping tools. However, it is also true that a woman can feel particularly vulnerable and personally threatened if her partner has breast cancer, knowing the disease is also a condition that may impact her. This may cause people who are single to be concerned about how their future partner may respond to learning of her cancer, or having a body part removed, or having problems with her fertility.
The latest such work from Harvard University also highlights the need for focused social support, which could be integrated into the care of cancer patients throughout the course of treatment. Initiatives could, and should, include regular visits to or phone calls to homes by healthcare workers, shared housing where individuals living alone may be housed together, or support groups for cancer patients. To assist couples in the journey of cancer, our hospitals also provide stress reduction services for patients and their loved ones, including one-on-one, couples, and family counselling, relaxing and guided imagery, and support groups.
