Measuring Perceived Social Support in Elite Athletes: Psychometric Properties of the Romanian Version of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support

Abstract

The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) is a brief measure designed to capture individuals’ perceptions of the support received from their social networks. It has been translated into several languages and adapted for various cultural contexts. The aim of this study was to evaluate psychometric properties of the Romanian version of the MSPSS, using a sample of young elite athletes. To assess its validity and reliability, 282 Romanian elite athletes (176 males, 106 females; 19 – 25 years old) completed the MSPSS together with questionnaires measuring life satisfaction, negative emotional disposition, and perceived stress. A confirmatory factor analysis underpinned a 12-item three-factor correlated model that was invariant over gender. Cronbach’s alpha and Raykov’s composite reliability coefficients together with average variance extracted showed adequate values for each factor. Correlational analysis displayed that three sources of social support positively correlated with life satisfaction and negative emotional disposition and negatively correlated with perceived stress. Altogether, the MSPSS is a valid and reliable short measure for Romanian elite athletes to explore perceived social support from their family, friends, or significant others.

Analysis of Social Support as an Argument for the Sustainable Construction of the European Community Space

“…Our results show that respondents participated to a lesser extent in prosocial activities that ensured and promoted socially sustainable forms of behaviour. The study is consistent with other interdisciplinary analyses focused on social support [20,23,43,44].…”

“…Alexe et al [20] found that, in the case of performance athletes, perceived social support was not associated with the frequency and severity of daily hassles or negative life events. On the other hand, Marian et al [21] have argued that the orientation towards reconciliation in organizations was more common among employees with high social support while the orientation towards revenge at work was more common among employees with low social support.…”

Validation of the South Korean adolescents version of the multidimensional scale of perceived social support

“…Modification indices were added to allow some error terms to be correlated. Modification indices have been used in several previous validation studies of the MSPSS, and the presence of correlated error implies that participants did not perceive these items as independent (Alexe et al, 2021; Cheng & Chan, 2004; Wongpakaran et al, 2018). Figure 1 shows the correlated error terms between Item 8 and Item 11 in FAM and Item 1 and Item 2 in SO.…”

“…Our CFA findings provide psychometric support for the proposed measurement model. However, some residual errors need to be correlated to obtain an acceptable model fit, along with previous MSPSS validation studies (Alexe et al, 2021; Cheng & Chan, 2004; Wongpakaran et al, 2018). The standardized regression weights of each item of the MSPSS were over 0.81, supporting that the theoretical association of each item with its initially designed factor was psychometrically underpinned (Alexe et al, 2021).…”

“…CFA was performed to test the three-factor structure proposed by Zimet et al (1988) and repeatedly confirmed by recent MSPSS validation studies (Alexe et al, 2021;Bruwer et al, 2008;Calderón et al, 2021;Canty-Mitchell & Zimet, 2000;Denis et al, 2015;Pushkarev et al, 2020;Wittenborn et al, 2020). The proposed model yielded sound fit statistics except for the RMSEA score, which exceeded the criterion of acceptable fit: CFI = 0.952; TLI = 0.938; SRMR = 0.041; RMSEA (90% confidence interval [CI]) = 0.105 (0.097-0.112).…”