Amount of social contact and hip fracture mortality.

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.