The relationship between social support and psychological well‐being in rheumatoid arthritic women from two ethnic groups

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Abstract
The purposes of this study of rheumatoid arthritic Caucasian and black women of American descent were to determine for the two ethnic groups: a) if there were differences in social support characteristics, b) if there was a difference in psychological well‐being, c) what the correlations were between psychological well‐being and the social support characteristics, and d) which social support characteristics were the best predictors of psychological well‐being. The data were obtained by interview using structured questionnaires. No significant differences were found between the social support characteristics or between psychological well‐being for the two groups. Significant correlations were shown between each of the social support characteristics and psychological well‐being for Caucasian women, but not for black women. No combination of social support characteristics was found to be any better than any other for predicting psychological well‐being in either group. The findings suggest that factors other than social support influence psychological well‐being in women with rheumatoid arthritis and that the evaluative instruments used were not sufficiently sensitive.

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