The multidimensional evaluation of enacted social support: Best practices for use based on issues of factor structure, study design, and scale instructions

Abstract

The Multidimensional Evaluation of Enacted Social Support (MEESS) measures communicated support in terms of supportiveness, helpfulness, and sensitivity. However, a systematic review of studies using the scale showed that the scale is mostly used as a unidimensional measure of support. Additionally, the scale is prone to having high interfactor correlations, and researchers rarely perform a confirmatory factor analysis to verify the scale’s factor structure. Therefore, we conducted two studies (Combined N = 1609) using nationally representative samples of U.S. adults to investigate the scale’s factor structure in message recall and hypothetical message study designs. We also explored whether the scale is best presented one factor at a time with factor-specific instructions as opposed to presenting the scale as a single set of items with one instruction set. Study 1 results indicate that the one-factor and three-factor solutions are both adequate without performing modifications during confirmatory factor analysis, but the three-factor model did provide a small but significantly better fit to the data than the one-factor model. In Study 2, both the one- and three-factor solutions had adequate fit; however, when using the factor-specific instructions, the three-factor solution had a far superior fit compared to the one-factor solution. Given the purpose of the scale as a multidimensional evaluation of social support, we recommend always conducting a confirmatory factor analysis when using the MEESS and to present the scale with separate instructions for each factor’s items.