Research table: Social support and breast cancer survival

This summary table contains detailed information about research studies. Summary tables are a useful way to look at the science behind many breast cancer guidelines and recommendations. However, to get the most out of the tables, it’s important to understand some key concepts. Learn how to read a research table.

Introduction: You get social support through interactions with others, including your family, friends and co-workers.

Social support may be linked to increased quality of life after breast cancer treatment [1-4]. However, it’s unclear whether social support is linked to improved survival.

Randomized controlled trials don’t show a survival benefit from support groups for women with breast cancer (see our research table on support groups and survival).

However, some large cohort studies suggest women with more social support have better survival than those with less social support.

The differences in results may be due to the types of social support studied.

Cohort studies have mostly studied the social support people get from social networks, such as friends and family. Randomized trials have mostly studied social support from strangers, such as support groups.

Further studies are needed to know whether there’s a difference between these types of social support and breast cancer survival.

Learn more about social support and support groups.

Study selection criteria: Prospective cohort studies with at least 200 participants and meta-analyses.

Study	Study Population (number of participants)	Follow-up (years)	Better Survival for Women with Breast Cancer Who Had the Most Social Support Compared to Those Who Had the Least? Yes / No
Prospective cohort studies
Kroenke et al. [5]	2,835	6	Yes
Kroenke et al. [4]	2,264	11	Yes*
Epplein et al. [6]	2,230	5	Yes
Reynolds et al. [7]	1,011	5	Yes
Phillips et al. [8]	708	8	No
DuMontier et al. [9]	660†	10	No
Chou et al. [10]	584	10	Yes
De Aguiar et al. [11]	544	2	No
Jatoi et al. [12]	331	15	No
Maunsell et al. [13]	224	7	No
Meta-analyses
Kroenke et al. [14]	3 cohort studies	Various	Yes‡

* Findings showed women with higher levels of social support had lower rates of death due to any cause compared to women with lower levels of social support. Rates of death due to breast cancer were similar between the groups.

† All women in this study were ages 65 and older.

‡ A fourth cohort study in this meta-analysis found no difference in breast cancer survival between women with and without social support.

References 

1. Kwan ML, Ergas IJ, Somkin CP, et al. Quality of life among women recently diagnosed with invasive breast cancer: the Pathways Study. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 123(2):507-24, 2010.
2. Leung J, Pachana NA, McLaughlin D. Social support and health-related quality of life in women with breast cancer: a longitudinal study. Psychooncology. 23(9):1014-20, 2014.
3. Durá-Ferrandis E, Mandelblatt JS, Clapp J, et al. Personality, coping, and social support as predictors of long-term quality-of-life trajectories in older breast cancer survivors: CALGB protocol 369901 (Alliance). Psychooncology. 26(11):1914-1921, 2017.
4. Kroenke CH, Quesenberry C, Kwan ML, Sweeney C, Castillo A, Caan BJ. Social networks, social support, and burden in relationships, and mortality after breast cancer diagnosis in the Life After Breast Cancer Epidemiology (LACE) Study. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 137(1):261-71, 2013.
5. Kroenke CH, Kubzansky LD, Schernhammer ES, Holmes MD, Kawachi I. Social networks, social support, and survival after breast cancer diagnosis. J Clin Oncol. 24(7):1105-11, 2006.
6. Epplein M, Zheng Y, Zheng W, et al. Quality of life after breast cancer diagnosis and survival. J Clin Oncol. 29(4):406-12, 2011.
7. Reynolds P, Boyd PT, Blacklow RS, et al. The relationship between social ties and survival among black and white breast cancer patients. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 3: 253-259, 1994.
8. Phillips KA, Osborne RH, Giles GG, et al. Psychosocial factors and survival of young women with breast cancer: a population-based prospective cohort study. J Clin Oncol. 26(28):4666-71, 2008.
9. DuMontier C, Clough-Gorr KM, Silliman RA, Stuck AE, Moser A. Health-related quality of life in a predictive model for mortality in older breast cancer survivors. J Am Geriatr Soc. 66(6):1115-1122, 2018.
10. Chou AF, Stewart SL, Wild RC, Bloom JR. Social support and survival in young women with breast carcinoma. Psychooncology. 21(2):125-33, 2012.
11. De Aguiar SS, Bergmann A, Mattos IE. Quality of life as a predictor of overall survival after breast cancer treatment. Qual Life Res. 23(2):627-37, 2014.
12. Jatoi A, Muss H, Allred JB, et al. Social support and its implications in older, early-stage breast cancer patients in CALGB 49907 (Alliance A171301). Psychooncology. 25(4):441-6, 2016.
13. Maunsell E, Brisson J, Deschenes L. Social support and survival among women with breast cancer. Cancer. 76(4): 631-637, 1995.
14. Kroenke CH, Michael YL, Poole EM, et al. Postdiagnosis social networks and breast cancer mortality in the After Breast Cancer Pooling Project. Cancer. 123(7):1228-1237, 2017.

Updated 07/27/21