Resilience, Self-Perceived Burden, Social Support and Their Correlation in Cancer Patients – A Cross-Sectional Study in China

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore resilience, self-perceived burden, social support and their correlation in patients with malignant tumors and provide evidence for clinical intervention.Methods: A multi-center cross-sectional study was performed in China. All the participants completed a questionnaire including sociodemographic information. Resilience, patients’ perceptions of burden on their caregivers and the level of social support were evaluated. Results: A total of 439 cancer patients were analyzed in our study. The level of resilience differed significantly by education grade, employment status, insurance type, household income per year, and treatment type. Patients with no job, rural residents, those with lower household income and those holding new rural cooperative medical scheme (NRCMS) insurance had higher SPB score, with statistical significance. Patients who underwent higher education, those with a full-time job, were married, with higher household income and urban employee's basic medical insurance (UEBMI) had higher social support. Social support was found to be highly related to resilience. Resilience was negatively correlated with emotional burden, and the emotional and physical burden and social support strongly influenced resilience. Path analysis found that social support played an intermediary role in the process of SPB affecting resilience.Conclusion: The resilience status of cancer patients was low and was affected by the self-burden level through social support. The study reminded us that improving the resilience level by education to improve the social support of cancer patients will improve the quality of life patients.