Abstract

SANTOS, Célia Samarina Vilaça de Brito; RIBEIRO, José Pais  and  LOPES, Carlos. Adaptation study of the escala de satisfação com o suporte social (ESSS) to people with cancer illness diagnosis. Psic., Saúde & Doenças [online]. 2003, vol.4, n.2, pp.185-204. ISSN 1645-0086.

The aim of this study is to analyse the appliance of the Escala de Satisfação com o Suporte Social (ESSS) from Ribeiro (1999) to a sample of cancer patients, and its psychometric proprieties. We also wanted to know its conceptual relationships with coping and quality of life. The ESSS was applied to 385 cancer patients, essentially female, on overage 55 years, low formal education, with a variety of recent cancer illness (time of diagnosis <3 months) without known metastasis and in the majority didn't still begin treatment of the disease. The Component Factor Analyse and Convergent-discriminant validity confirm the conceptual structure presented from the author with four domains (friends/friendships, intimacy, satisfaction with family and with social activities) although the sample documented a tendency to associate the satisfaction with friends/friendships to the intimacy. The scale showed a good reliability in all the domains (alpha Cronbach from 0,66 to 0,89) but it is the friends/friendships that best explains the total variance of the scale. Although presenting weak correlations, the scale showed to be sensitive to the conceptual interrelation with coping strategies and results in health, as quality of life. It is also sensitive to the demographic characteristics of the subjects in analysis. We can consider that ESSS is a reliable and valid instrument to evaluate the satisfaction with social support on cancer illness. However, we suggest other studies to reanalyse the properties of the scale especially in other phases of the illness.

Keywords : Cancer Illness; Coping; Quality of Life; Social Support.

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