Subjective Well-Being in Cancer Patients: The Roles of Social Support, Purpose in Life, Resilience, and Informativeness

The aim of this research was to determine the relationship between subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive and negative experiences, and prosperity) and various psychosocial factors (social support received from family members and partners, purpose in life, resilience and information) in cancer patients and to examine the possibility of predicting components of subjective well-being based on these mentioned factors in cancer patients. A total of 338 adult cancer patients from Croatia participated in the study (41.1% male and 58.9% female). To measure the constructs, the Diener Subjective Well-Being Scale, the Social Support Scale at work and in the family, the Purpose in Life Scale, the Short Resilience Scale, and the EORTC-QLQ information questionnaire were used. Results showed a high level of life satisfaction and prosperity, as well as more frequent positive compared to negative experiences. A medium to high level of social support received from family members and from the partner was determined. High levels of purpose in life and medium levels of resilience and information were found. A high correlation was found among the components of the construct of subjective well-being, and a low to medium correlation among the predictors. Positive associations were found between the criteria of life satisfaction and prosperity with psychosocial factors. Negative associations were established between the positive/negative experience variables and the factors. Furthermore, the purpose in life was determined as an important predictor of all three components of subjective well-being, social support (both sources) as important for predicting life satisfaction, resilience for experiencing positive and negative experiences, and social family support for predicting the prosperity of cancer patients.