Socially connected people do better after surgery

By Anne Harding

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who have a strong social network feel less pain and anxiety before having surgery than their more isolated peers, according to a new study in VA patients. This translates to less pain and anxiety after the operation, less use of pain medication, and fewer days spent in the hospital, researchers report.

"Our hope is to try to put a spotlight on this for surgeons," Dr. Daniel B. Hinshaw told Reuters Health. The findings make it clear, he explained, that surgeons should ask patients about their level of social support, and anticipate that people with less support may fare worse.

"The old John Donne reference 'no man is an island' is extremely relevant to our health," he commented.

Hinshaw, at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and his colleagues had been conducting a study of massage therapy in 605 patients who underwent major surgery of the chest or abdominal area, and performed the current analysis to determine how social connectedness affected a variety of outcomes.

The researchers gauged social connectedness by counting how many close friends and relatives study participants had, how often they saw them, and whether they attended a place of worship or other social function at least once a week. Nearly 88 percent of the study participants reported having three or more friends or relatives they saw at least once a month, while 12 percent had less than three.

Individuals with larger social networks were less likely to have anxious personalities, and they felt less pain and anxiety before surgery, Hinshaw and his team report in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

Furthermore, in the five days after surgery, anxiety and depression were lower and sense of inner peace and relaxation were higher for the patients with larger social networks; these patients also felt less pain and felt that their pain was less unpleasant, and required fewer opiate drugs.

Patients with bigger social networks were also 16 percent less likely to spend seven or more days in the hospital.