The contribution of social support and social strain to depressive symptoms in African American, Native American, and European American women

Abstract

Positive and negative aspects of social relations and their association with depressive symptoms were examined for a sample of Native American, African American and European American women ( N = 249). Support was associated with lower depressive symptoms, whereas strain was associated with higher depressive symptoms. Further, European American women were advantaged only by high levels of support compared to the women of color; at moderate and low levels of support, European American women reported Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scores that were similar to or higher than women in other ethnic groups. Results indicate that links between supportive and negative relationship dimensions to depressive symptoms previously tested using only European American samples can be extended to ethnically diverse samples, but there are also important between-group differences.