The Relationship Between Illness Uncertainty and Social Support Among Cancer Patients: A Meta-analysis.

Background: As a common psychological problem in cancer patients, illness uncertainty has attracted wide attention from scholars. Some studies have pointed out that the level of social support may affect illness uncertainty in patients with cancer, but the results of these studies remain controversial.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between illness uncertainty and social support in patients with cancer using meta-analysis.

Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, EBSCO, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, and VIP Citation Database were searched for articles published up to 2022. The screening of the literature, data extraction, and quality assessment of the included studies were performed independently by 2 researchers. Stata 17.0 software was used to analyze the overall and moderation effects.

Results: Notably, 41 studies involving 5403 patients were included. The results showed that the illness uncertainty of adults with cancer was moderately negatively correlated with social support ( r = -0.33). Country, publication year, cancer type, and instrument used to measure social support moderated the association between illness uncertainty and social support.

Conclusion: Improving the level of social support can reduce illness uncertainty experienced by adults with cancer to a certain extent.

Implications for practice: This review provides a clear direction for implementing precise interventions to reduce illness uncertainty among adults with cancer. Furthermore, patients with cancer with high morbidity and mortality rates deserve greater attention from healthcare personnel and family caregivers.