Understanding the role of social support in preventing acute care hospitalization and promoting quality of life among Canadians living with chronic disease

People living with chronic illness who lack social support are more likely to use the healthcare system and experience worse disease outcomes. Our overarching objective is to understand how social supports impact health system use and quality of life among adults living with chronic disease. Our project has the following objectives to answer our research question: 1) describe the demographic, quality of life and functional abilities in each chronic disease cohort, 2) describe the social supports in each chronic disease cohort, 3) examine the sociodemographic determinants of social support in each chronic disease cohort, and 4) examine the associations between social supports and acute care hospitalization in each chronic disease cohort.