Female patients more likely to get divorced

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2nd July: A study shows that a woman who suffers from cancer or sclerosis is six times more likely to be separated or divorced than if a man in the relationship is diagnosed with a disease. This type of gender discrimination is known as ‘partner abandonment’.

The study also found that the longer the marriage the more likely it would remain intact.

The study confirmed earlier research that put the overall divorce or separation rate among cancer patients at 11.6 percent, similar to the population as a whole.

However, researchers were surprised by the difference in separation and divorce rates by gender. The rate when the woman was the patient was 20.8 percent as compared to 2.9 percent when the man was the patient.

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“Female gender was the strongest predictor of separation or divorce in each of the patient groups we studied,” said Marc Chamberlain, M.D., a co-corresponding author, and director of the neuro-oncology program at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA). Chamberlain is also a professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

The study, “Gender Disparity in the Rate of Partner Abandonment in Patients with Serious Medical Illness,” was published in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Cancer. The other corresponding author is Michael Glanz, M.D., of the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

According to study authors, men are likely to leave a sick spouse due to their inability to give care and assume the burden of maintaining a home and a family as compared to a woman.

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Researchers at three medical centers, the SCCA, Huntsman, and Stanford University School of Medicine, enrolled a total of 515 patients in 2001 and 2002 and followed them until February 2006.

The men and women were in three diagnostic groups: those with a malignant primary brain tumor (214 patients), those with a solid tumor with no central nervous system involvement (193 patients) and those with multiple sclerosis (108 patients). Almost half of the patients were women.

The study was initiated when the doctors noticed in their neuro-oncology practices that divorce occurred almost exclusively when the wife became the patient.

The researchers enrolled groups of patients with other cancers and with multiple sclerosis to separate the impact of oncologic versus neurological disease.

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The result showed when the wife was the patient in the general oncology and multiple sclerosis, there was a stronger gender disparity for divorce as compared to the one with the primary brain tumor.

There is also a correlation between the age and duration of a marriage and the likelihood of the divorce or separation. Longer marriages remain more stable, however, the older the woman is, the more chances are that the partnership would end.

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Researchers found that the quality of life of such patients who get divorced or separated decreases. They start depending more on anti-depressants, participate less in clinical trials, have more frequent hospitalizations, and are less likely to complete their radiation therapy.

“We believe that our findings apply generally to patients with life-altering medical illness,” the authors wrote. “We recommend that medical providers are especially sensitive to early suggestions of marital discord in couples affected by the occurrence of a serious medical illness, especially when the woman is the affected spouse and it occurs early in the marriage. Early identification and psychosocial intervention might reduce the frequency of divorce and separation, and in turn, improve quality of life and quality of care.” (Source: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center)

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