Burden of socio-legal concerns among vulnerable patients seeking cancer care services at an urban safety-net hospital: a cross-sectional survey

Table 1 Patient Characteristics by Socio-Legal Concern (N = 104)

	Total	No Socio-Legal Concerns	≥1 Socio-Legal Concerns	P-value
	104	24 (23 %)	80 (77 %)
Age (yr), mean, range	49 (18–85)	52 (21–85)	48 (18–84)	0.33
Gender, n (%)				0.67
Female	73 (70)	67 %	71 %
Male	31 (30)	33 %	29 %
Race, n (%)				0.09
Black/African-American	50 (48)	29 %	54 %
White	36 (35)	50 %	30 %
Other	18 (17)	21 %	16 %
Non-English Primary Language^a, n (%)	40 (38)	38 %	39 %	0.91
Marital Status, n (%)				0.04
Single	43 (41)	21 %	48 %
Married/Partnered	37 (36)	54 %	30 %
Divorced/Separated/Widowed	24 (23)	25 %	23 %
Education, n (%)				0.12
High School or Less	70 (67)	54 %	71 %
College or Grad School	34 (33)	46 %	29 %
HH Income^a, n (%)				0.03
< $20,000	45 (43)	29 %	48 %
$20,000–$50,000	20 (19)	8 %	23 %
> $50,000	22 (21)	46 %	14 %
Has Primary Care Physician^a, n (%)	97 (93)	88 %	95 %	0.35
Health Insurance^a, n (%)				0.16
Public^b	65 (63)	33 %	54 %
Private	35 (34)	42 %	29 %
Type of Visit, n (%)				0.94
Screening/Diagnostic eval	44 (42)	42 %	43 %
Treatment	60 (58)	58 %	58 %
Perceived Stress (mean, SD)^c	8.92 (3.23)	7.23 (2.37)	9.40 (3.29)	0.004
Overall Health (mean, SD)^d	2.24 (0.91)	1.96 (0.69)	2.35 (0.95)	0.09

^aPercentage points may not add up to 100 % due to missing data
^bIncludes Health SafetyNet, MAHealth, Commonwealth, Celtic Care
^cScore from the Perceived Stress Scale [1], a 4 question survey where scores around 13 are considered average, a higher score means greater stress
^dScore from the RAND Medical Outcomes Study, 12-item Short Form Survey [2]. Scores 50 and above represent average health status

ISSN: 1472-6963