[Validation of a functional social support scale for use in the family doctor's office]

Abstract

Objective: The present work seeks to validate the Duke-UNC questionnaire as modified by Broadhead, which is used to measure social support in its qualitative dimension.

Design: It is a transversal, prospective and observational study.

Location: The study has been done at the primary care level, corresponding to the basic health area of Cartuja (Granada).

Patients: The questionnaire was administered to 139 patients seen in the offices of the Cartuja Health Centre. 25 of them were male and 114 female, of an age ranging from 18 to 84. The subjects were selected on a systematic base of three by three with a random starting-point from among people over 18 years old visiting the office.

Interventions: To check the reliability and validity of the questionnaire, Pearson's, Edward's and Cronbach's alpha techniques were used. The factorial analysis was verified by the varimax rotation method.

Measurements and main results: We have observed that the questionnaire correctly measures qualitative social support, it being appreciated that the correlation coefficients are high, as is the internal consistency of the scale. After the factorial analysis we also confirmed the existence of two components: Factor 1 which measures the confidential social support and Factor 2 which measures the affective social support.

Conclusions: The Duke-UNC questionnaire reduced to 11 items is a fast and simple instrument for detecting the level of social support in its affective and confidential dimensions. Its use will allow us to discover situations of high social risk; permitting us in these cases to carry out the relevant support interventions.