Social support and quality of life in Greek women with breast cancer during chemotherapy and two years later

Abstract

Background: Social support in women with breast cancer is associated with quality of life (QoL) and it appears to be vital for treating breast cancer and adaptation to disease. Social support seems to decrease quantitatively and over time while significant improvement in the patients' long-term emotional and physical function is observed. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the differences in levels of social support and QoL in two independent groups of patients: women with breast cancer (i) during chemotherapy and (ii) two years after the chemotherapy. Participants and Procedure: In this cross-sectional study 74 women with breast cancer "during chemotherapy" (n = 41) and "two years after chemotherapy" (n = 33) completed the Greek version of Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) and the Greek version of the Missoula-VITAS Quality of Life Index (MVQoLI-15) to measure social support and QoL respectively. All statistical analyses were performed with SPSS 25 with significance set at p < .05. Results: The group "two years after chemotherapy" reported better QoL than the "during chemotherapy" group. There was no difference in perceived social support between the two groups. The higher the patients' age, the lower the QoL for the "during chemotherapy" group and the higher the social support for the "two years after chemotherapy" group. Conclusions: QoL improves over time, emphasizing the ability of women to manage difficult situations. Social support remains important in both periods.