IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v43y1996i9p1389-1397.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An international study on measuring social support: Interactions and satisfaction

Author

Listed:
  • Doeglas, Dirk
  • Suurmeijer, Theo
  • Briançon, Serge
  • Moum, Torbjørn
  • Krol, Boudien
  • Bjelle, Anders
  • Sanderman, Robbert
  • van den Heuvel, Wim

Abstract

Recently, a new instrument was developed to measure social support. It consists of two parts; the Social Support Questionnaire for Transactions (SSQT) and the Social Support Questionnaire for Satisfaction with the supportive transactions (SSQS). The SSQT measures the number of supportive interactions and has proved to have good psychometric properties. From the taxonomy that was used for the present study, it results that social support in general consists of two aspects. These are, on the one hand, actual supportive transactions and, on the other hand, the perception of being supported or the satisfaction with the social support provided. In the present study, two research questions were addressed. The first concerned the psychometric properties of the SSQS, measuring the individual's satisfaction with the supportive interactions provided. Secondly, the relative contribution of both supportive interactions (the SSQT) and the satisfaction with the support provided (the SSQS) were assessed, in explaining the level of health related quality of life outcome. The data of 744 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients from four different countries (116 French, 238 Norwegian, 98 Swedish and 292 Dutch patients) were used in the present study. At the entry of the study, all patients fulfilled four out of seven American Rheumatism Association (ARA) criteria and had a disease duration of 4 years or less. The results of the study indicate that the SSQS has good psychometric properties across countries. Cronbach's [alpha] for the emotional support scales was 0.80 or more, and for the instrumental support subscales around 0.60. The standardized regression coefficients demonstrated that, compared to supportive interactions, support satisfaction was more relevant in explaining health related quality of life measures, although it is recommended that the SSQT and SSQS be used to complement each other.

Suggested Citation

  • Doeglas, Dirk & Suurmeijer, Theo & Briançon, Serge & Moum, Torbjørn & Krol, Boudien & Bjelle, Anders & Sanderman, Robbert & van den Heuvel, Wim, 1996. "An international study on measuring social support: Interactions and satisfaction," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1389-1397, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:43:y:1996:i:9:p:1389-1397
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(96)00036-6
    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. Urbig, Diemo & Monsen, Erik, 2012. "The structure of optimism: “Controllability affects the extent to which efficacy beliefs shape outcome expectancies”," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 854-867.
    2. Rosario Fernández-Peña & José Luis Molina & Oliver Valero, 2020. "Satisfaction with Social Support Received from Social Relationships in Cases of Chronic Pain: The Influence of Personal Network Characteristics in Terms of Structure, Composition and Functional Conten," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-17, April.
    3. von Walter, Benjamin & Wentzel, Daniel & Raff, Stefan, 2023. "Should service firms introduce algorithmic advice to their existing customers? The moderating effect of service relationships," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 280-296.
    4. Zhi Fang & Li Huang & Huan Zhang, 2023. "Analyzing the Impact of Geographic Environment Differences on the Dual Backwardness of Rural Economy and Information in the Perspective of Digital Poverty," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-11, February.
    5. Kumar, Santosh & Calvo, Rocio & Avendano, Mauricio & Sivaramakrishnan, Kavita & Berkman, Lisa F., 2012. "Social support, volunteering and health around the world: Cross-national evidence from 139 countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(5), pages 696-706.
    6. Plaisier, Inger & de Bruijn, Jeanne G.M. & de Graaf, Ron & Have, Margreet ten & Beekman, Aartjan T.F. & Penninx, Brenda W.J.H., 2007. "The contribution of working conditions and social support to the onset of depressive and anxiety disorders among male and female employees," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 401-410, January.
    7. Yunong Huang & Hung Wong, 2014. "Impacts of Sense of Community and Satisfaction with Governmental Recovery on Psychological Status of the Wenchuan Earthquake Survivors," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(2), pages 421-436, June.
    8. Jessica Michgelsen & Daniel Boateng & Karlijn A.C. Meeks & Erik Beune & Juliet Addo & Silver Bahendeka & Karien Stronks & Charles Agyemang, 2021. "Association between Practising Religion and Cardiovascular Disease Risk among Ghanaian Non-Migrants and Migrants in Europe: The RODAM Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-13, March.

    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:43:y:1996:i:9:p:1389-1397. 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.