Amount of Social Contact and Hip Fracture Mortality

Mortimore, Edward PhD
Haselow, Dirk PhD
Dolan, Melissa PhD
Hawkes, William G. PhD
Langenberg, Patricia PhD
Zimmerman, Sheryl PhD
Magaziner, Jay PhD, MSHyg

From the ^*Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Baltimore, Maryland ^†School of Medicine, University of Arkansas, Little Rock, Arkansas; ^‡Health Services Program, Survey Research Division, RTI International, Chicago, Illinois; ^§Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland and ^∥School of Social Work and Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Address correspondence to Edward Mortimore, PhD, Technical Director, Division of Nursing Homes, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 7500 Security Blvd., Room S3-12-11, Baltimore, MD 21244-1850. E-mail: [email protected]

Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 56(6):p 1069-1074, June 2008.

OBJECTIVES

To study the association between amount of social contact and mortality after hip fracture in elderly participants.

DESIGN

Prospective cohort.

SETTING

Community residents of Baltimore, Maryland.

PARTICIPANTS

Six hundred seventy-four elderly participants.

MEASUREMENTS

Amount of telephone and direct personal contact between participants and their relatives and friends and mortality up to 2 years after fracture.

RESULTS

No social contact with friends during the 2 weeks before the fracture was associated with a five times greater risk of death over 2 years than daily contact with friends during the 2 weeks before the fracture (hazard ratio (HR)=5.04, 95% confidence interval (CI)=2.75–9.23). Participants with less than daily contact were also at greater risk of dying, although the CI spanned 1 (HR=1.76, 95% CI=0.99–3.13). Participants who had no contact with family members prefracture were more than twice as likely to die as those who communicated daily during the 2 weeks before fracture (HR=2.26, 95% CI=1.36–3.77). Participants who had less than daily contact were also more than twice as likely to die (HR=2.55, 95% CI=1.65–3.94).

CONCLUSION

This study suggests that lower social contact before hip fracture is associated with poorer survival after 2 years.