RESEARCH ARTICLE
Loneliness and Emotional Support Predict Physical and Psychological Distress in Latinas with Breast Cancer and Their Supportive Partners
Chris Segrin1, *, Terry Badger2, Alice Pasvogel2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2015Volume: 8
First Page: 105
Last Page: 112
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-8-105
DOI: 10.2174/1874350101508010105
Article History:
Received Date: 25/10/2014Revision Received Date: 30/01/2015
Acceptance Date: 02/02/2015
Electronic publication date: 15/5/2015
Collection year: 2015
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Following predictions from the stress process model, associations between loneliness, emotional support, physical health, and psychological distress were tested in 115 Latinas with breast cancer and their supportive partners. Results showed that loneliness and emotional support were predictive of psychological distress and physical symptoms. Additionally, emotional support minimized the association between physical symptoms and psychological distress. There were strong individual-level effects for loneliness and emotional support on physical health and psychological distress, and evidence that a partner’s loneliness also worsened psychological distress in the participants.