Association between social support and psychological distress (source: EORG, 2003a)

Remarks

Social support is measured with the OSS-3.

• Strong social support: a lot of concern showed by others, help very easy from others, 3 or more close relationships.
• Intermediate social support: some concern showed by others, easy help from others, 1 or 2 close relationships.
• Poor social support: no or little concern showed by others, difficult or very difficult help from others, no close relationships.

Psychological distress is a non-specific dimension of psychopathology. It indicates that something is wrong but does not yield a diagnostic assessment. It usually comprises anxiety and depression related distress states during the past month. Psychological distress is measured using the Mental Health Inventory (MHI-5). This is a brief questionnaire consisting of three depression-related items and two anxiety-related items. The score for the MHI-5 was computed by adding the scores of each question item and then transforming the raw scores to a 0–100-point scale. A score of 52 or less is defined as psychological distress (MINDFUL, 2008). The MHI-5 is part of the Short-Form Health Survey (Ware et al., 1993).