Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2005 Nov 20;23(33):8305-12.
doi: 10.1200/JCO.2005.09.500. Epub 2005 Oct 11.

Not working 3 years after breast cancer: predictors in a population-based study

Mélanie Drolet  1 , Elizabeth Maunsell, Jacques Brisson, Chantal Brisson, Benoît Mâsse, Luc Deschênes
Affiliations

Not working 3 years after breast cancer: predictors in a population-based study

Mélanie Drolet et al. J Clin Oncol. .

Abstract

Purpose: Little is known about factors increasing likelihood of not working among breast cancer survivors compared with women in the general population.

Patients and methods: A population-based retrospective cohort study was conducted in Quebec, Canada, based on the consecutive series of working women aged younger than 60 years when first treated for breast cancer (identified through the Quebec Tumor Registry), and on a group of randomly selected similar women, living in Quebec, who were working at the time of survivors' diagnoses, but who were without cancer (identified through provincial health care files). Data came from a telephone interview, 3 years after diagnosis for 646 survivors (73% of those eligible) or during a similar period for 890 comparison women (51%).

Results: Slightly more survivors were not working 3 years after diagnosis compared with women never diagnosed with cancer (21% and 15%, respectively). Older age (for survivors and comparison women, relative risk [RR] = 4.62, P < .0001 and RR = 4.98, P < .0001, respectively) and union membership (RR = 1.88, P = .0003 and RR = 1.40, P = .06, respectively) increased the likelihood of not working at the end of follow-up. In addition, income less than 20,000 dollars compared with > or = 50,000 dollars was associated with not working only among survivors (RR = 3.18; P = .0008). Adjuvant treatments did not predict work cessation, but any new cancer event during follow-up did (RR = 2.14; P < .0001).

Conclusion: Although reassuring that adjuvant treatments did not appear to play a role in survivors' not working, other aspects of the cancer experience might nonetheless have influenced the decision to reduce work effort after breast cancer.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources