IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v29y1989i12p1387-1392.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Development of a social support instrument for use in population surveys

Author

Listed:
  • Undén, Anna-Lena
  • Orth-Gomér, Kristina

Abstract

A wide variety of measures have been used to assess the effects of social support on physical and psychological well-being. Many instruments have incomplete information about reliability and validity. Other instruments appear to be reasonably valid, but involve a large number of questions and are therefore not suitable in population surveys. The main purpose of the study was to examine whether a psychometrically well documented, but time consuming instrument. The Interview Schedule for Social Interaction, could be abbreviated and simplified for the use in population surveys. By means of both item and content analyses the original instrument was shortened and both versions were tested in a study group of 83 middle-aged Swedish men. The distribution of scale scores were similar in the complete and in the abbreviated version and so was reliability, measured as internal consistency and split-half reliability. Validity was examined by comparing the two versions in relation to other measures of social integration, as well as personality and behaviour characteristics. Men with low social support were less socially and physically active, were more depressed and were less trustful than men with high support. Men who scored low on social support were also more often smokers, of lower social class, lower occupational level and lower education and had more complaints of ill health, mainly of cardiovascular nature. The discriminative capacity was as good for the complete as for the abbreviated version. Thus no obvious disadvantages in terms of reliability and validity could be demonstrated for the abbreviated version.

Suggested Citation

  • Undén, Anna-Lena & Orth-Gomér, Kristina, 1989. "Development of a social support instrument for use in population surveys," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 29(12), pages 1387-1392, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:29:y:1989:i:12:p:1387-1392
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(89)90240-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kristin Thomas & Evalill Nilsson & Karin Festin & Pontus Henriksson & Mats Lowén & Marie Löf & Margareta Kristenson, 2020. "Associations of Psychosocial Factors with Multiple Health Behaviors: A Population-Based Study of Middle-Aged Men and Women," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-17, February.
    2. Padyab, Mojgan & Blomstedt, Yulia & Norberg, Margareta, 2014. "No association found between cardiovascular mortality, and job demands and decision latitude: Experience from the Västerbotten Intervention Programme in Sweden," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 58-66.
    3. Mona Eklund & Margareta Östman, 2010. "Belonging and Doing: Important Factors for Satisfaction With Sexual Relations as Perceived By People With Persistent Mental Illness," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 56(4), pages 336-347, July.
    4. Yvonne Forsell, 2004. "Psychiatric Symptoms, Social Disability, Low Wellbeing and Need for Treatment: Data from a Population-Based Study," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 50(3), pages 195-203, September.
    5. Evelina Landstedt & Per Gustafsson & Klara Johansson & Anne Hammarström, 2016. "Longitudinal associations between social relationships at age 30 and internalising symptoms at age 42: findings from the Northern Swedish Cohort," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 61(1), pages 75-81, January.
    6. Karin Festin & Kristin Thomas & Joakim Ekberg & Margareta Kristenson, 2017. "Choice of measure matters: A study of the relationship between socioeconomic status and psychosocial resources in a middle-aged normal population," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(8), pages 1-16, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:29:y:1989:i:12:p:1387-1392. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.