An international study on measuring social support: Interactions and satisfaction

Abstract

Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Doeglas, D. M., Suurmeijer, T. P. B. M., Briancon, S., Krol, B., Moum, T., Sanderman, R., ... van den Heuvel, W. J. A. (1996). An international study on measuring social support: Interactions and satisfaction. Social Science & Medicine, 43(9), 1389-1397. CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Soc. Sci. Med. Vol. 43, No. 9, pp. 1389-1397, 1996 Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. . 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 (! 16 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 ct 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.

The Relationship Between Personality, Supportive Transactions and Support Satisfaction, and Mental Health of Patients with Early Rheumatoid Arthritis. Results from the Dutch Part of the Euridiss Study

“…The greater the discrepancy between the amount of supportive transactions received and a person's need for these transactions, the less the patients' needs are fulfilled and, consequently, the less they will feel satisfied with the social support received and the more their mental health or wellbeing will be jeopardized (Van Sonderen, 1991). This was confirmed in our study on measuring social support satisfaction among ERA patients (Doeglas et al, 1996;Doeglas et al, 2004). …”

“…Note that, in fact, Thoits' definition of social support (see above) explicitly refers to need satisfaction. Some empirical support for this point of view was found in one of our earlier studies in which satisfaction with supportive transactions appeared to be more relevant for the patients' wellbeing than these transactions as such (Doeglas et al, 1996). The amount of supportive transactions does not necessarily reflect the need for social support of the RA-patients while satisfaction/dissatisfaction does.…”

“…Of particular interest for the present study is that of Fyrand et al (1997). Using the transactional part of a social support instrument Doeglas et al, 1996), they found that personality (neuroticism and extraversion as assessed by Eysenck Personality Questionnaire [EPQ] [Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975]) explained the relationship between emotional supportive transactions and mental health (as assessed with the depression and anxiety subscales from the General Health Questionnaire, 28 item version [Goldberg and Williams, 1988;Sanderman and Stewart, 1990;Krol et al, 1994]) while social companionship had both a direct effect on mental health and partially mediated the relationships between personality and mental health (Figure 2).…”

Teachers’ Emotional Labour and Burnout: Does Perceived Organizational Support Matter?

“…Eisenberger et al, 1986), it may affect the decision-making of teachers' emotional regulation strategies. Whereas actual supportive interactions are objective in nature, the perception of being supported relies on the sensitivity of the individual involved, which is subjective in terms of quality (Doeglas et al, 1996). Eisenberger et al (1986) point out that POS would be impacted upon by different parts of employee's treatment by the organization and would, in turn, determine the employee's interpretation of organizational intentions behind such treatment.…”

Individual differences in well-being in older breast cancer survivors

“…Other studies have established that satisfaction with social support is an important factor to consider because subjective appraisal of the quality of social support received can also impact well-being in both positive and negative ways (e.g. over protectiveness leading to greater dependency) [22,23]. Thus, we also incorporate satisfaction with social support as an independent predictor, to establish whether frequency or quality of social contacts have a differential effect on wellbeing in older breast cancer survivors.…”