THE ESSENTIAL
- In the study, 46% of participants were men.
- During follow-up, a 14% increased risk of first-onset psychiatric disorders, ie similar to substance abuse, was observed.
- The increased risk was greater for spouses of patients who were diagnosed with cancer with a poor prognosis, an advanced stage tumor, and when the patient died during follow-up.
“There is emerging evidence that spouses of adults with cancer may have a higher prevalence of mental illness, but this research has been limited by the focus on a single mental illness and short follow-up periods,” said researchers from the University of Oslo in Norway. This is why they carried out a study, published in the journal JAMA Network Openin order to examine the deleterious effects of the announcement of a cancer diagnosis on the mental health of patients’ partners.
3 million spouses of cancer patients have been followed
For the purposes of their work, the scientists recruited more than 3 million people in Denmark and Sweden. In detail, these are 546,321 spouses of cancer patients and 2,731,574 partners of healthy people. “Members of the unexposed group were individually matched to people in the exposed group on year of birth, gender and country. Spouses with and without pre-existing psychiatric morbidity were analyzed separately”can we read in the research.
Cancer: a higher risk of depression among patients’ partners
According to the results, 6.9% of spouses of cancer patients developed a psychiatric disorder during follow-up, compared to 5.6% of spouses of people without cancer. According to the team, the risk of first-onset psychiatric disorders increased by 30% during the first year after cancer diagnosis, particularly for depression and stress-related disorders.
“These findings support the need for clinical awareness to prevent possible mental illness in spouses of cancer patients, particularly in high-risk groups,” concluded the authors in a statement.