Abstract
The issue of social relationships has been reliably related to health outcomes, and has drawn the attention of researchers in health psychology for a long time. This field of investigation is however marked by a lack of clarity in terms of both concepts studied and psychometric instruments. Hence, the conceptual and methodological basis of the aforementioned links is to be clarified in order to get a better understanding of the action of the effect of the social support's mechanisms. The aim of the present paper is to make an inventory of current knowledge in this field and consider future perspectives. The distinction between structural, functional and transactional approaches of social support is a prerequisite for the clarification and operationalization of concepts related to social support, but also modeling the mechanisms involved in the relation between social support and health. New perspectives in the study of social support should be considered to go beyond traditional approaches that focus primarily on perceived social support through the concepts of perceived availability and satisfaction. The study of attitudes towards support network is a challenging direction that can provide insights for understanding the effects of social support on health. These attitudes reflect people preconceptions and beliefs about seeking and receiving social support, their evaluations of the ability of their social network to provide assistance and their willingness to accept it. We also discuss the implications of these theoretical arguments for research on social support, as well as the potential applications for psychosocial care of vulnerable people that are apparent from this perspective.
Published Version
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