Mengmeng Yuan,1 Lijun Wu,2 Wen Li,1 Shuwen Li1 

1School of Nursing, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

Correspondence: Shuwen Li, School of Nursing, Anhui Medical University, No. 15 Feicui Road, Economic and Technological Development District, Hefei, 230601, People’s Republic of China, Email lishuwen@ahmu.edu.cn

Purpose: We intended to explore the chain mediation role of resilience and different sources of social support on the relationship between symptom interference and life satisfaction from the patient-reported perspective.
Patients and Methods: Two hundred and twenty-six patients after esophagectomy were investigated using four validated scales to estimate the symptom interference, resilience, different sources of social support, and life satisfaction. The chain mediation analysis was conducted using SPSS PROCESS Macro Model 6.
Results: Mediation analysis showed that symptom interference indirectly influenced life satisfaction through two significant mediating pathways: (i) resilience (B = − 0.138, 95% CI: − 0.194 to − 0.091); (ii) the chain mediators involving in resilience and family support (B = − 0.049, 95% CI: − 0.073 to − 0.026). Surprisingly, the mediating pathway of family support was not significant.
Conclusion: Interventions for resilience and family support could mitigate the adverse effects of symptom interference in patients after esophagectomy, improving life satisfaction. Of these, resilience may be more critical in terms of the utilization of social resources than family support.

Keywords: life satisfaction, oesophageal cancer, social support, resilience, symptom interference