Gendered trajectories of depressive symptoms and social interactions among cancer patients.

Objective: This study examines whether and how depressive symptoms and social interactions change before and after cancer diagnosis, and whether this pattern varies by gender.

Methods: This study used data about 722 middle- and older-aged adults from seven waves (3,963 person-observations) of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing spanning 12 years between 2006 and 2018. Gender-stratified fixed effects regression models were used to investigate the effect of cancer diagnosis on changes in depressive symptoms and the frequency of social interactions (with friends, relatives, acquaintances, and neighbors) before and after cancer diagnosis.

Results: For both men and women, an increase in depressive symptoms was found in the first and second year after cancer diagnosis, though the increase in the second year was significantly greater for men than women. Only men continued to suffer higher depressive symptoms after the third year and subsequent years. This study also found a decrease in the frequency of social interactions only among men in the second year and subsequent years after cancer diagnosis.

Conclusions: Trajectories of psychosocial adjustment to cancer are gendered. The psychosocial consequences of cancer are greater and last longer for men than women.