Social Support Providers: Who Are They? Where Are They Met? and the Relationship of Network Characteristics to Psychological Distress

Abstract

An important concept that has gained the widespread attention of community mental health practitioners and researchers has been social support networks, and their role in help-seeking behavior and remediating personal distress. Despite the plethora of social support research in the last decade, several questions remain: Who are these natural providers of support and comfort? Where are they met? What is the relationship of network characteristics to the psychological well-being of the helped person? Are there gender and racial differences in answering these questions? To address these questions, randomly selected adults (n = 361) living in one of three suburban communities in southern California provided responses to a standardized measure of psychological distress, and also, named those persons on whom they depended when personal problems arose. Same-sex friends and members of the respondent's immediate family were cited most often as sources of social support. Respondents depended more often on women tha...