The Role of Perceived Social Support, Resilience, and Depression on Communicative Participation in Head and Neck Cancer Survivors

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was (1) to investigate the relationships among the psychosocial variables of perceived social support, resilience, and depression in adults diagnosed with head and neck cancer (HNC), and (2) to determine the unique contribution of these variables in predicting individuals’ communication in everyday activities (i.e., communicative participation) above and beyond known factors (self-rated speech severity, cognitive function, time since diagnosis, and laryngectomy status). Participants/Methods: Seventy-three adults (average age = 65.8 years) who were at least 2 years post-treatment for HNC participated in the study. Participants completed questionnaires consisting of demographic information and self-report scales measuring communicative participation and other variables of interest. Results: With all variables considered, a total of 63% of the variance was predicted in communicative participation. Depression was found to uniquely predict communicative participation, accounting for 12% of the variance. Perceived social support was weakly correlated with communicative participation, but was not found to be a significant unique predictor. Resilience did not significantly correlate with or uniquely predict communicative participation. Self-rated speech severity uniquely accounted for 28% of the variance in communicative participation. Conclusions: These results suggest that, in addition to the known variable of self-rated speech severity, depression is a useful predictor of communicative participation. Implications for speech-language pathology service delivery and future research directions are discussed.