Social support has been accounted for in a minority of help-seeking investigations. Social support is most often measured via respondent-report measures, such as those administered on a survey or via an interview conversation. There is a well-established set of self-report measures of social support.
This webpage is designed to introduce readers to some of the measures of social support that can be used to answer questions about how social support may shape people’s perceptions and behaviors related to seeking mental healthcare.
The below lists will be expanded and revised over time to maximize their value to those looking for measures with published evidence of reliability and validity. Social support has been conceptualized by researchers in three ways (Vangelisti, 2009): sociological or interconnectedness of people’s social relationships, availability or perceived and received social support, and communication or enacted support. Thus, this webpage will discuss measures within each type.
Measures of social support as sociological or interconnectedness of people’s social relationships:
- (forthcoming)
Measures of social support as availability or perceived and received social support:
- Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS; Zimet et al., 1988) (full-text download) – measures perceived adequacy of social support via subscales for family, friends, and significant others.
- Oslo Social Support Scale (OSS-3; Kocalevent et al., 2018)
- Duke Social Support Index (DSSI; Koenig et al., 1993)
- Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ; Sarason et al., 1983)
Measures of social support as communication or enacted support:
- (forthcoming)
Several helpful reviews of social support measures exist, including Gottlieb and Bergen (2010), Nurullah (2012), and Winemiller and colleagues (1993).