Role of life satisfaction, emotional support, and feeling of social isolation on adherence to breast cancer screening recommendations among US women

Background

Psychosocial factors can play important roles in promoting preventive health behaviors. This study aimed to assess how life satisfaction, receipt of emotional support, and feeling of social isolation were associated with adherence to the USPSTF recommendation of breast cancer screening in a nationally representative US population.

Methods

Using data on 71,583 women aged 50 to 74 years, from the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey, we estimated multivariable logistic regressions to assess the odds of adherence across different categories of the respective psychosocial constructs. We accounted for various demographic and socioeconomic correlates and checked the robustness of the relationship within income and educational sub-groups.

Results

We found that women who were dissatisfied with their life were 52.0% less likely to adhere compared to women who reported to be very satisfied. Similarly, women who rarely/never got emotional support and who always/usually felt socially isolated were 51.6% and 39.9% less likely to adhere, compared to women who always got support and never felt isolated, respectively. These results were robust across different levels of income and educational attainment.

Conclusion

Our findings demonstrated a strong association between social environment, psychological wellbeing, and adherence to breast cancer screening, and thus suggested scope of potential psychosocial interventions to improve adherence.

Policy summary

Efforts to improve women’s psychosocial wellbeing could facilitate compliance with breast cancer screening recommendations.