Apoyo social e instrumentos de evaluación: revisión y clasificación

Resum

Social support is a multidimensional construct with a range of functional and structural aspects. Several instruments for its assessment have been reported in the literature. All of them have been designed for specific samples with particular characteristics, which means that the nature of the muny questionnaires published varies widely. The aim of this study is
to review some of the instruments used to evaluate social support. We analysed 22 questionnaires, classifying them according to the dimensions proposed by Tardy (1 985), and describing their psychometric properties. Our review showed that these instruments assessed different aspects of the
conshuct. The dimensions of social evaluation are operationalized in different ways; therefore it is difficult to standardize evaluation criteria and to compare the outcome of social support or its effect on health.