Selection in the social network - Effects of chronic diseases

Background: This article deals with the consequences of disease for someone 's personal social network. It is hypothesized that the duration of a socia lly severe disease will affect the social network in such a way that the pr oportions of women, kin, long-standing relationships and people living near by are higher for people suffering from a disease longer. Contacts with col leagues will decline. Methods: These hypotheses were tested on the data of a representative sample of the Dutch, gathered by means of a health intervi ew (N=10,110). The presence and duration of diseases were measured by a che cklist of 23 chronic diseases. The social severity of a disease was determi ned by its visibility, threat to others and functional disablement, The net work characteristics in this study were church membership, membership of vo luntary organizations, number of close friends, number of supportgivers, pr oportions of kin, women, colleagues, long-standing relationships and people living nearby. Gender, education, life-cycle stage and work status were ta ken into account in all analyses. Results: Logistic and linear regression a nalyses showed that the duration of a disease, whatever the degree of socia l severity, does not affect the network strongly. People suffering longer f rom socially severe chronic diseases reported fewer friends and supportgive rs, People suffering longer from moderately severe chronic diseases reporte d fewer supportgivers for health-related support. The results on socially m ild chronic diseases were not in line with the expectations: people who are ill longer reported more friends and fewer women in their network. Conclus ion: We conclude that in a general population the duration of diseases hard ly has any effect on social network characteristics.