Deficiencies in Social Support Among Depressed Patients: Antecedents or Consequences of Stress?

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Abstract
Although initial research in the stress field has treated stress and support as independent entities, more recent efforts have emphasized their interrelatedness. It has been suggested that part of the influence of stress on psychological well-being is due to the adverse impact of stressful events and strains in reducing social support and that social support can have positive, indirect effects on health by reducing the subsequent occurrence of stress. To address these issues, a 2 wave, 2 variable panel model was used to examine longitudinal relationships between stress and support in a sample of 233 clinically depressed patients. Changes in levels of strain and in positive life events were significantly associated with changes in family support over the 1 yr follow-up period. There was less evidence of an effect of social support on negative life change events, ongoing strains or positive life change events. Analyses are described which examined differences in the pattern of results as a function of: the occurrence of exit or loss events; the timing of events and the use of nonlinear models.