Mader, L., Vetsch, J., Christen, S. et al. (4 more authors) (2017) Education, employment and marriage in long-term survivors of teenage and young adult cancer compared with healthy controls. Swiss Medical Weekly, 147. w14419. ISSN 1424-7860
Abstract
QUESTIONS UNDER STUDY: Teenage and young adult (TYA) cancer patients are faced with the diagnosis during a challenging period of psychosocial development that may affect social outcomes in the long term. Therefore, we aimed to: (1) determine differences in social outcomes between long-term TYA cancer survivors and healthy controls and (2) identify factors associated with adverse social out-comes.
METHODS: We sent a questionnaire to TYA cancer survivors (aged 16-25 years at diagnosis, ≥5 years after diagnosis) registered in the Cancer Registry Zurich and Zug. Information on controls was obtained from the Swiss Health Survey 2012. We assessed educational achievement, employment status, marital status and life partnership (survivors only), and compared these outcomes between survivors and controls. We used logistic regression to identify sociodemo-graphic and cancer-related factors associated with social outcomes.
RESULTS: We included 160 TYA cancer survivors and 999 controls. Educational achievement of survivors differed significantly from controls (p = 0.012): more survivors than controls reported upper secondary education (33 vs 27%) and fewer survivors reported uni-versity education (12 vs 21%). No significant differences were found for employment (p = 0.515) and marital status (p = 0.357). The major-ity of survivors (91%) and controls (90%) were employed, and 37% of survivors were married, compared with 41% of controls. There were no cancer-related factors associated with having only basic educa-tion. Unemployment was associated with younger age at diagnosis (odds ratio [OR] 5.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.3-30.8) and self-reported late effects (OR 4.7, 95% CI 1.3-19.5). Survivors of younger age at diagnosis were more likely not to be married (OR 2.7, 95% CI 1.3-5.7) and not to have a life partner (OR 2.3, 95% CI 1.0-5.2).
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that TYA cancer survivors com-pleted applied higher education rather than a university education. Future studies including larger samples of TYA cancer survivors are needed to validate our findings and to explore the reasons for and satisfaction with the observed educational pathway.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | Published under the copyright license "Attribution - Non-Commercial - No Derivatives 4.0" (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). No commercial reuse without permission. See http://emh.ch/en/services/permissions.html. |
Keywords: | adolescent; young adult; cancer; survivors; employment; education; marriage; Switzerland |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 05 Jul 2017 10:56 |
Last Modified: | 05 Jul 2017 10:56 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.4414/smw.2017.14419 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | EMH Schweizerischer Ärzteverlag |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.4414/smw.2017.14419 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:118533 |