Summary
Social support questionnaires usually provide scant information about the members of supporting networks, while network-analytical approaches often fail to sufficiently detail the functional aspects of social support available to an individual. A structured interview, the “Mannheim Interview on Social Support” (MISS) is presented which combines the advantages of both approaches by mapping an individual's social resources in a “support matrix” of [network members] [relationship characteristics + support functions]. Stability and validity data collected in three different samples (discharged depressed in-patients, university students, and parents of children afflicted with cancer) are reported. Test-retest correlations are compared with alternative measures of stability, and the relationship of various MISS scores to scores based on conceptually related instruments is explored. The results indicate good test-retest stability of the main functional and structural MISS scoresr tt=0.66 to 0.88 for a four-week interval, andr tt=0.42 to 0.79 for a sixmonth-interval). It is shown that the MISS captures several dimensions of a person's social support environment not covered by questionnaires targeting subjective perceptions of support.
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The research on which this paper is based was made possible, in part, by Grant No. Ve 97/2 from the German Research Association (DFG).
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Veiel, H.O.F. The Mannheim Interview on Social Support. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 25, 250–259 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00788646
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00788646