Description

The Sources of Social Support Scale (SSSS) is an instrument used to assess the social support an individual perceives as receiving from different sources within their social environment. These sources may include family members, friends, colleagues, and other significant people in the individual’s life. The scale focuses on capturing the person’s perception of both the quality and quantity of support available through their social network.

Social support represents an important psychosocial resource that may be associated with emotional adjustment, psychological well-being, and the individual’s ability to cope with challenging life circumstances. The SSSS provides a structured framework for examining the relative contribution of different support sources.

Objective

The main objective of the SSSS is to provide a clear understanding of how individuals perceive social support from different sources. The information obtained may help researchers and clinicians better understand how social support contributes to emotional well-being and resilience during difficult or stressful situations.

By distinguishing among different sources of support, the scale may also help identify which relationships or social networks function as stronger or weaker sources of support for the individual.

Scoring

The SSSS is generally scored using a Likert-type scale, in which participants rate the support they receive in different areas according to its frequency or intensity. Individual responses are scored and combined to provide an indication of the overall level of perceived social support from the individual’s social network.

Higher scores generally indicate higher levels of perceived social support. Depending on the scoring procedure, separate scores may also be examined for different sources of support.

Data Analysis and Use

The SSSS collects information about the various sources of social support available to an individual and how these sources may relate to psychological well-being. Responses can be analyzed according to specific sources, such as family, friends, or colleagues, in order to determine the degree of support perceived from each source.

The data may also be used to identify the sources of support that appear most important to the individual and to examine how they are associated with psychological or emotional functioning. The source material specifically notes the use of the scale in studies examining the relationship between social support and mental health outcomes, including anxiety and depression.

Psychometric Evaluation

In research applications, the SSSS may be evaluated in terms of internal consistency, structural validity, and associations with related psychosocial variables. Depending on the specific form of the instrument and the research sample, reliability indices and factor-analytic methods may be used to investigate the organization of different sources of social support.

Interpretation of the results should take into account the population being studied and the specific administration and scoring procedures applied.

Applications

The SSSS may be used in psychological, social, educational, and clinical research, particularly when the aim is to investigate the relationship between social support and mental health.

Its ability to distinguish among different sources of support may help identify gaps within an individual’s social network and may contribute to the development of interventions aimed at strengthening social connectedness, emotional well-being, and psychosocial resilience.

References

Zimet, G. D., Dahlem, N. W., Zimet, S. G., & Farley, G. K. (1988). The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Journal of Personality Assessment, 52(1), 30–41.

Sarason, I. G., Levine, H. M., Basham, R. B., & Sarason, B. R. (1983). Assessing social support: The Social Support Questionnaire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 127–139.

Cohen, S., & Wills, T. A. (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 98(2), 310–357.