INTRODUCTION

The role of social support is well recognized in health, psychological adjustment, and in the relation between stress and physical symptoms.[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Social support is a multidimensional and complex construct that has both structural and functional aspects.[3] The structural aspects of social support include quantitative properties of the social network such as size, range, proximity, and accessibility.[3] As Berkman et al., argued that functional support refers to the quality of the support served by the structural component.[3] Both structural and functional aspects depend on the perception of the recipient of support.[3] Hence researchers differentiate between perceived and received social support.[7, 8] Perceived support refers to the perception of the recipient of accessibility and quality of support.[3, 9]

A number of scales have been designed to assess social support, including in-person interviews and self-report questionnaires.[10, 11] The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) is one of these scales, which was originally developed by Canty-Mitchell and Zimet.[12] It addresses the subjective measure of social support adequacy.[10, 13] Recently there has been a surge of interest in the use of the MSPSS across cultures.[14] Zimet et al.,[12] have well argued that the MSPSS is a short scale (12 items total), its items are easy to understand and despite being a brief instrument it measures support from three sources. The significant others subscale is a unique aspect of the MSPSS.[14] It leaves the definition of who the “significant other(s)” is (are) to the respondent.

The MSPSS measures perception of social support from three sources: Family, friends and significant others. Psychometric properties of the MSPSS have been demonstrated among a number of different samples, including university students,[12] psychiatric patients,[15] urban adolescences,[13] medical students,[10] South African adolescences[16] and teenagers of Hong Kong.[14]

The three-factor structure of the MSPSS was supported in all but one subsequent study. In a study done on the Chinese version of the MSPSS by Kee,[14, 10] the friends and significant others subscales were combined into one subscale. It perhaps revealed that perceived social support varies among different cultures.

Due to the important role of perceived social support in psychological and physical health, unique features of the MSPSS are being discussed, bearing in mind that no research has demonstrated the Persian version of this scale; therefore, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate the reliability, validity and factor structure of the Persian version of the MSPSS in an Iranian sample.

METHODS

RESULTS

Exploratory factor analysis was used to explore and refine the underlying structure of the items. Prior to factor analysis, the matrix was assessed for psychometric adequacy. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (MSA = 0.80 for the MI patients and = 0.87 for the healthy group) was well for the two groups, and Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant (χ² = 1446.14, P < 0.01 for MI patients; χ² = 619.87, P < 0.01 for healthy participants). Given the stability of data, we conducted a principal-component factor analysis with oblique rotation. Oblique rotation was chosen to allow correlation between factors. Using the Eigenvalue >1 criterion and a scree plot analysis, three factors emerged from the correlation matrix. There was no item loaded on two or more factors with a difference <0.1. Cross-loading with a difference >0.1 was not unexpected, because we expected some correlation between factors. Therefore, consistent with results from prior studies,[13, 12] three factors were extracted, which coincided with the family, friends and significant others subscales.

The factors combined to account for 77.9% and 78.5% of the variances in the MI patients and healthy respondents, respectively. The oblique rotated factor pattern matrix indicated that all items loaded highly (0.74 or better) on their respective subscale, with minimal cross-loadings (all less than 0.29) for the MI patients [Table 1], and some high-cross loading (higher than 0.50) but with a difference >0.1 for the healthy participants [Table 2].

Table 1. Oblique rotated pattern matrix from principal axis factor analysis of the MSPSS-P items in MI patients

Table 2. Oblique rotated pattern matrix from principal axis factor analysis of MSPSS-P items in healthy participants

Internal consistency as assessed by Cronbach's α was 0.83 for total MSPSS in the MI patients and 0.92 in the healthy group. Cronbach's α for all subscales was similar in both groups of respondents [Table 3]. Test–retest reliability as assessed by Pearson's correlation in the healthy group was 0.74, 0.78, and 0.84 for family, friends and significant others, respectively.

Table 3. Cronbach's α for total MSPS-P and all its subscales in both groups of participants

DISCUSSION

The results of the present study indicated that the Persian version of the MSPSS was a valid and reliable instrument for use among the Iranian MI patients and healthy group. The results also showed high internal consistency of the scale and the three subscales in both patients and healthy respondents. In addition, test–retest reliability indicated its excellent stability over a 2-month period.

Factor analysis confirmed the three-factor structure proposed by Zimet et al.,[12] in their original study and supported by all but one (Chinese version) study. Although these results confirmed that the Persian version of the MSPSS showed good psychometric properties in an Iranian sample, more cross-loading in healthy participants perhaps revealed that when an individual becomes indisposed: (a) Perceived social support may change, (b) social contact may increase and (c) sources of functional support may be more clarified. Future studies will need to test these possibilities.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, the Persian version of the MSPSS is a reliable and valid instrument to measure three different sources of perceived social support, family, friends and significant others, among Iranian MI patients and healthy samples.