CN26 - Association of life satisfaction, emotional support, social isolation with lung cancer screening adherence among US Adults

Background

Annual lung cancer screening (LCS) with low-dose computed tomography (CT) is recommended for adults at increased risk for lung cancer. Yet, LCS uptake is low in the US. Evidence showed that psychosocial factors may influence LCS adherence. Thus, this study examined how life satisfaction, emotional support, and social isolation were associated with the recommended annual LCS use among the LCS-eligible adults.

Methods

We used population-based data from the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, comprising 12,380 LCS-eligible adults aged 50-79 with current or former (quit smoking in the past 15 years) tobacco use history of ≥ 20 pack-years. The outcome was annual LCS adherence in the past 12 months. Logistic regression models explored factors associated with LCS adherence. Analyses were weighted to account for the survey design, with findings generalizable to 5.1 million LCS-eligible adults.

Results

The sample self-identified themselves as mainly white (78.5%), male (54.8%), aged 50-64 years (60.5%), married (51.3%), urban residents (89.1%) and had an annual household income of <$25,000 (29.0%). Nearly 60% of respondents were current smokers, and 35.4% reported fair-poor general health. A total of 12.5% of participants felt rarely/never emotionally supported, 12.16% felt always/usually socially isolated, and 9.5% expressed dissatisfaction with life. Despite being eligible for LCS, only 17.6% had recommended LCS in the past 12 months. Compared to adults who never felt socially isolated, those self-reporting frequent social isolation had lower adherence to LCS (OR=0.69, CI 0.49-0.98). Adults who always felt emotionally supported were more likely to adhere to LCS than those who have never/rarely felt emotionally supported (OR=0.61, CI 0.38-0.99). Adults reporting dissatisfaction with life had significantly lower adherence to LCS (OR=0.53, CI 0.34-0.84) than those very satisfied with life.

Conclusions

The findings emphasize a significant association between psychosocial factors and adherence to LCS. Personalized psychosocial initiatives are needed to enhance compliance with the recommended LCS. Nurses are pivotal in educating and guiding patients about LCS and encouraging them to participate.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.