Social support in people with chronic respiratory diseases: an exploratory study

Abstract

Objectives: Social support influences health status and manage-ment of people with chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs), but it is largely unexplored. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore the quantity, quality and network composition of social support in peo-ple with CRDs.Methods: An exploratory cross-sectional study was conducted in people with CRDs. Quantity (number of people), quality (level of satisfaction) and network composition (who provides support) of social support were assessed with the 6-item short form Social Su-pport Questionnaire (SSQ6). For each item, participants were asked to provide two answers: i) to list all people or institutions who fit the description of the question (range: 0 to 9 people; quantity and network composition); and ii) to indicate how satisfied they were with the support these people or institutions provided (range: 1 very dissatisfied to 6 very satisfied; quality). Total score for quantity and quality was computed using the mean of the scores from the 6 items. Descriptive statistics was used, and values were presented as median, minimum and maximum or frequencies.Results: Forty-eight people with CRDs (chronic obstructive pulmo-nary disease [COPD] n = 39, asthma n = 4, interstitial lung disease [ILD] n = 4 and lung cancer n = 1; 70 [51-84] years old, 32 [66.7%] male) were included. Participants had a median quantity and quality of social support of 1.66 [0.67-7.67] people and 6 [3.5-6] points, respectively. Their support network was mainly composed by close relatives (i.e., spouse and children) in all items of SSQ6 (Table).Conclusions: People with CRDs seem to have low quantity of social support but perceive it as high quality. The network composition of social support seems to lack support from the community (e.g., neighbours and/or institutions) in this population.