This article reviews the literature on social support and presents the theoretical foundations and basic concepts of social support. A framework is presented for assessing measures of social support, and eight measures are reviewed using the framework. The framework focuses on basic conceptualizations of social support, the psychometric characteristics of the measures, and their clinical utility. Suggestions are made for both using and improving existing measures of social support in social work practices.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.