Goals of work: The goal of this study was to explore living conditions among disease-free cancer survivors participating in the labour force after successful primary treatment. Their living conditions were compared with the conditions of matched controls from the general Norwegian population.
Patients and methods: Living conditions are social indicators that stimulate social inclusion and reduce exclusion such as economy, employment, health, housing and social participation. A questionnaire covering living conditions with established questions from population surveys was mailed to 852 cancer survivors and 1,548 controls. Valid responses were obtained from 51% cancer survivors (216 women with breast cancer, 49 men with prostate cancer, and 165 with testicular cancer) and 39% controls (317 women and 279 men).
Main results: Compared to their controls cancer survivors showed no difference in work hours or full-time jobs, but reported significantly poorer physical and mental work capacity. This was associated with significantly more somatic diseases among survivors and poorer general health status in male survivors. The survivors had significantly smaller households and more living space than controls. No significant differences were observed concerning economy or social participation, except that significantly more female survivors than controls stated that they had enough friends.
Conclusions: In spite of poorer health, tumour-free survivors after breast, testicular, and prostate cancer report mostly equal living conditions compared to matched controls. The protection hypothesis of holding jobs as a precondition for normal living condition was confirmed in our study of a sample of cancer survivors with good outcome.