The International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation
Social Support and Life Satisfaction


 


 

Kim Wan Young, PhD
 University of Bristol, U.K.

                           



 Citation:
Young, K.W. (2006). Social Support and Life Satisfaction.  
International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation.  10 (2), 155-164 .






Abstract

This study aims at exploring the relationship between social support and life satisfaction for people with long-term mental illness. Research sample included 146 subjects, coming from two large residential homes in Hong Kong. Results show that different sources of social support have different effects on individual’s life satisfaction. Supports from staff and friends, but not from family, predict individual’s life satisfaction well. Emotional and instrumental supports from staff and friend have different predictive power and importance on individual’s life satisfaction. These findings suggest that strengthening staff and friends’ support could improve life satisfaction for people with long-term mental illness.

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Key words: Life Satisfaction, Social Support, Mental Illness

Introduction

Although many researchers concern with the significant effect of social support on individual’s mental heath (e.g. Brown et al. [1]),  few research studies have been done in exploring the relationships between social support and life satisfaction for people with long-term mental illness. Baker et al.’s study [2] is one the few studies giving a detailed analysis in this area. In his study of 844 people with chronic psychiatric illness receiving community support services, case management service, as one type of social support, was shown to improve respondents’ subjective overall life satisfaction over the nine months period. Moreover, the increase of social support was related to the increase of subjective overall life satisfaction.

 

While acknowledging the existing relationship between social support and life satisfaction for people with long-term mental illness, little is known on how social support system affects life satisfaction. There are several important issues in the investigation of this area which are discussed below.

 

Firstly, in social support research, there is a distinction between received support and perceived support. Received support is a measurement of the actual support received from supportive members, while perceived support is typically measured by asking people to what extent they believe in their network are available to help them. For example, Earls et al. [3] found that frequency of social support (actual received support) was related to individual’s life satisfaction for people with psychiatric illness. On the other hand, Turner et al. [4] reported that perceived social support was correlated with psychological well-being for people with psychotic mental illness. Research evidences tend to suggest that perceived social support, but not received support, is more strongly related to life satisfaction [5].

 

Secondly, some researchers further examine the different modes and functions of perceived social support on individual’s life satisfaction. Although there are different categories regard to the functions of social support, social support could simply be categorized in two aspects: emotional or instrumental support [6].  Different modes of social support seem to meet the needs of people with different types of psychiatric illness.  For example, while people with depression need emotional support [7], people with schizophrenia need a combination of problem solving and low level emotional support [8]. Thus it seems that different modes and functions of social support, i.e. emotional or instrumental support, may have different effects on individual’s life satisfaction.

 

Thirdly, research studies consistently found that the sources of supportive network of people with mental illness are different from that of the general population [8, 9]. While, their supportive networks are smaller in size [10], they are more likely to emphasize non-family support, such as: social service providers [11, 12]. For example, when facing with stressful life events, people with psychotic mental illness were found to seek support from mental health professionals, rather than from family [8]. It seems that different sources of support (i.e., family and non-family) may have different effects on individual’s life satisfaction. 

 

Finally, some researchers have tried to investigate about the complex process how social support interacts with psychological well-being. Several theoretical models have been developed in this area. The first model is called stress buffering model. This model assumes that social supports have an effect upon the individual’s psychological well-being only in the presence of certain social conditions, such as stressful life events [13]. The second model is the direct or main effect model. The model suggests that social support has independent effects on individual’s psychological well-being [14]. The third model is the indirect model. It assumes that social support exerts an indirect effect on individual’s psychological well being by directly reducing perceived stress, which in turn, promote individual’s well-being [15]. Although many empirical research studies have been carried out to test these models, research evidences for these models was inconsistency [13, 14, 15, 16]. More research needs to be done before reaching any firm conclusion in this issue.

 

Research Objective 

The aim of this research study is to explore the effects of different sources of social support (i.e. family, friends and staff) and functions (i.e. emotional support and instrumental support) on individual’s life satisfaction for people with long-term mental illness. 

 

Research Design and Sample

This study has adopted a cross-sectional research strategy.  The studied group of people with long-term mental illness came from two large residential homes in Hong Kong. In each residential home, four to five residents lived in the same bedroom. Various kinds of professional and non-professional staff had been employed to provide 24-hour personal care services for its residents. Staff to resident ratio is about 1:4.  Those residents, who were being assessed by registered psychiatric nurse as mentally stable, had suitable comprehensive and communicative skills, and discharged from mental hospitals and then lived at the residential home for one year or more, were eligible for being selected into the studied sample.  Finally 146 residents had given their written consent and were interviewed by the author successfully. The data of subjective life satisfaction and social support of the studied group were collected and completed in 1998.

 

 

Measuring Scales and Data Collection

1) Quality of Life Interview scale

In this study, Lehman’s Quality of Life Interview [17] is adopted to measure the subjective life satisfaction of the studied group. The reliability and validity of the scale are well established [17, 18] and the scale has been widely used [19, 20]. In this study, there is no modification in this scale, and the reliabilities of sub-scales of` overall life satisfaction as well as subjective satisfaction in various life domains have been tested to be satisfactory (Cronbach’s a= .73 for overall life satisfaction sub-scale; and Cronbach’s a range from .75 to .91 for subjective satisfaction indicators in various life domains).

 

2)        Multi-Dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support

With regard to the measurement of different sources and functional aspects of social support, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) [21] is modified and adopted in this study. The validity and reliability of the scale has been reported to be satisfactory [5, 21]. However, this scale is originally designed for people without mental illness.  So this scale is modified so as to be more relevant and applicable for people with long-term mental illness living in residential home.  Two modifications have been made.  Firstly the scale has been shortened, and respondent is asked whether supportive persons would provide assistance in seven occasions instead of twelve. These seven occasions included: financial support; using public transport and community facilities; giving advice; going out for tea; sharing pleasant and unpleasant feelings; comforting; and giving concern.  Assistances to the first four occasions refer to instrumental support, while assistances to last three occasions refer to emotional support.  Secondly, “significant others” of the original scale is replaced by staff of residential home.  So, in this scale, respondents would rate and compare their perceived social support from family members, friends and staff. A typical question is: “Would your family member / friend / staff provide financial support to you?”  Each item is rated in a 4-point scale: “1” Not at all; “2” Sometimes; “3” Often; “4” Certainly.

 

In this study, the reliabilities of MSPSS and its subscales have been tested to be satisfactory (Cronbach’s a was .90 for whole scale, and ranked from .98, .86 and .85 for the subscales of perceived support from family, friends and staff respectively). In addition, factor analysis has been carried out for this scale by using principal component analysis through Window SPSS program. Results shows that each items of this scale are satisfactory explained by three factors (please refer to Table 1 & 2).  So this scale can be grouped into three factors as if the original scale [5, 21] and these three factors are: family support (item S1 to S7), friend’s support (item S8-S14) and staff support (item S15-S21).

 

 

Table 1 Total Variance Explained for each item of MSPSS

 

Initial Eigenvalues

 

 

Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings

 

 

Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings

 

  

 

Component

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total

% of Variance

Cumulative %

Total

% of Variance

Cumulative %

Total

% of Variance

Cumulative %

 

 

S1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.267

34.603

34.603

7.267

34.603

34.603

6.588

31.373

31.373

 

 

S2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.768

27.465

62.068

5.768

27.465

62.068

4.953

23.587

54.960

 

 

S3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.225

5.833

67.901

1.225

5.833

67.901

2.717

12.940

67.901

 

 

S4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.118

5.324

73.225

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

S5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.905

4.311

77.536

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

S6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.770

3.669

81.204

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

S7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.573

2.728

83.932

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

S8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.556

2.649

86.582

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

S9

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.482

2.297

88.878

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

S10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.433

2.060

90.939

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

S11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.396

1.888

92.826

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

S12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.343

1.632

94.458

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

S13