Why the study?
Evidence suggests emotional status affects physical health, but the association of different emotional support sources with cardio-cerebrovascular disease morbidity or mortality required investigation.
Does emotional support from experientially similar others reduce cardio-cerebrovascular morbidity and all-cause mortality compared to support from significant others?
Does emotional support from experientially similar others reduce cardio-cerebrovascular morbidity and all-cause mortality compared to support from significant others?
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Emotional support from experientially similar others, such as friends and community members, is associated with reduced all-cause mortality and myocardial infarction morbidity compared to support primarily from family members.
BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that emotional status affect physical health. We aimed to investigate the association of different emotional support sources with morbidity or mortality of cardio-cerebrovascular diseases (CVDs). METHODS: We conducted a retrospective-cohort analysis using data in National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2004. 6183 participants were included and categorized into significant others support group (SOG, n = 2999) and experientially similar others support group (ESG, n = 3184) according to self-report questionnaire. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to eliminate group difference. Pearson's Chi-square test, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and generalized linear model were used to calculate and estimate associations between mortality, CVDs morbidity and emotional support sources. RESULTS: Participants receiving more support from experientially similar others had significant lower morbidity of myocardial infarction (MI, OR = 0.86) and all-cause mortality (OR = 0.81) after PSM compared to SOG. Subgroup analysis after PSM also showed that more emotional support from experientially similar others can significantly reduce all-cause mortality, especially in women and people over 60 years old. LIMITATIONS: Retrospective-cohort analysis and limited sample size. CONCLUSION: Compared with participants receiving more emotional support from family members, receiving more emotional support from other relative, neighbors, co-workers, church and club members, professionals and friends significantly reduced all-cause mortality as well as MI morbidity.
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Zhu et al. (2025) studied this question.
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