Abstract
BackgroundSocial support, defined as the exchange of support in social relationships, plays a vital role in maintaining healthy behavior and mitigating the effects of stressors. This study investigated whether functional aspect of social support is related to 5-year mortality in health checkup participants.MethodsThis study recruited 16,651 subjects (6797 males, 9854 females). Social support was evaluated using five-component questions: Do you have someone 1) whom you can consult when you are in trouble? 2) whom you can consult when your physical condition is not good? 3) who can help you with daily homework? 4) who can take you to hospital when you don’t feel well? and 5) who can take care of you when you are ill in bed? The association between the component of social support and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality was examined using Cox proportional hazard analysis.ResultsThe percentage of subjects without social support components was 7.7–15.0%. They were more likely to be male, non-elderly, and living alone. During the follow-up period, there were 166 all-cause and 38 cardiovascular deaths. Cox proportional analysis adjusted for confounders showed that only the lack of support for transportation to hospital was significantly associated with all-cause (hazard ratio [HR] 2.01, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.26–3.05) and cardiovascular mortality (HR 3.30, 95% CI 1.41–6.87). These associations were stronger in males than females.ConclusionThis study showed that the lack of social support for transportation to the hospital was independently associated with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in a community-based population.
Highlights
Social support, defined as the exchange of support in social relationships, plays a vital role in maintaining healthy behavior and mitigating the effects of stressors
The baseline questionnaire gathered information on social support using the following five questions because a previous study showed that these questions and answers were associated with depression in the Japanese population [19]: Do you have someone 1) whom you can consult when you are in trouble? 2) whom you can consult when your physical condition is not good? 3) who can help you in daily housework? 4) who can take you to a hospital when you don’t feel well? and 5) who can take care of you when you are ill in bed? The answer to each question was binary
Logistic regression analysis of factors related to a lack of social support components showed that male sex, age under 65, and living alone were independently associated with the lack of almost all five social support components (Table 3)
Summary
Social support, defined as the exchange of support in social relationships, plays a vital role in maintaining healthy behavior and mitigating the effects of stressors. Many studies have reported that those who are socially isolated have higher mortality than those with many social support/ networks in various populations including African American elderly women [4], local inhabitants in the United States [5,6,7], Finland [8], and Brazil [9]. These results indicate that the association between social support and mortality is commonly observed, irrespective of gender, age, and ethnicity. It has not been examined the association between social support and the cause of death in detail
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