The important role played by the social support in the health-illness process, both in health promotion, disease prevention, and recovery. Social support constitutes the set of resources of diverse nature that families can count on in daily life and especially in certain situations. A distinction is made between the type of instrumental, material or tangible, informative and spiritual emotional support that is very necessary to face the demands of life. In this Online Psychology study we are going to discover the family support in the most significant events of family life.
Social and family support: definition
Regarding social support, there are a large number of concepts that from a methodological point of view make its investigation difficult, since the way of measuring it varies according to the theoretical conceptions of the author, so there is no uniformity in the elements evaluated by scholars of the issue.
Miguel Roca, Cuban psychologist, scholar of the subject, in his book, “Social Support: Its Significance for Human Health,” defines social support as the existing social resources, of different natures that an individual receives in a given situation, in their link with the environment through interpersonal relationships and that can be perceived positively or negatively, influencing their well-being and ability to function in the face of the disease in a dynamic way. .1
Social networks have proven to be very effective for the family, optimizing your health and restoring it when it is compromised. The family requires social support networks, which can provide emotional, material, spiritual and informational help.
Social support reduces the negative effects of events, The lack of support causes negative consequences for the family, while good social support, both internally (the family itself) and externally (support networks), works as a protective factor for family health.
Method that was carried out in the study of family support
A descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out with a stratified sampling The population studied was 480 families, which would be distributed in the 25 neighborhoods of the Ocotlán Municipality. The application of the instruments took place in the second week of June 2009.
- Regulatory events studied were: marriage, pregnancy, the birth of a child, the entry of a child into school, an adolescent child, an adult child who left home, retirement, the expected death of the spouse at the stage of family dissolution.
- The paranormatives: due to dismemberment, which is when a temporary or permanent separation of a member of the family occurs, increase due to the incorporation of one or more family members, demoralization when the values and ethical-moral principles of the family are affected, important economic change and health problems, when the health of at least one member of the family is affected.
It was used The Family Social Support Test, This instrument allows us to identify the types of support received, the social networks most used by the family, the frequency of contacts with the networks, satisfaction with the support received and the family’s perception of the availability of support. The instrument used is contained in a Family Evaluation Methodology, validated in Cuban families. 2
The application was carried out in a manner directed at the head of the family nucleus, by students of the Psychology major at the University of Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de la Ciénaga in a visit to the home, where the objectives of the research were explained. and informed consent was requested from the family.
Descriptive statistical methods were used to analyze the data, they were organized, classified and analyzed, using absolute frequencies and percentage analysis, and presented in tables and graphs.
Results: type of social support
In the families studied we found that they receive some type of support, informational (46%), emotional (43%), instrumental (43%) and spiritual (39%), they received a lot of emotional support (40%), spiritual (33 %), informative (31%), and instrumental (26%), See graph 1: Type of social support)
The families studied very frequently received the support of the family that lives in the home (51%) and from the partner (43%), infrequently, from health institutions (59%), from neighbors (51%), from friends (51%), from extended family or those who live abroad from the home (45%), from religious associations (40%) and absence of social support networks from other social and public institutions (72%) and from co-workers (43%), (See graph 2: Networks of social support used by families).
Social support networks used by families
Regarding the frequency with which families established contact with social support networks, we found that contacts between families and networks were infrequent (53%), frequent 29%, with the relevant data being that in some families contact was never established. the network in (13%) and very frequent only in (4%), (See graph 3: Frequency of contact with social networks).
Frequency of contact with social networks
In this case, the satisfaction with the support received was a lot (51%). The families perceived the support received, answering in the category of a lot (45%), (See graph 4: Satisfaction and perception with the support received ).
Discussion
The families received the four types of support studied, first the emotional support, followed by the spiritual support and to a lesser extent the informational and instrumental support. Emotional support is related to affection that is given to the family, that makes it feel wanted, loved, and esteemed by others. The spiritual support that corresponds to what the family receives to promote the spiritual well-being of the members, this corresponds to the high rate of religiosity in the municipality. The families studied have lacked informational support, they have lacked information and guidance. The greatest insufficiency has been in instrumental support, which paradoxically is what the family needs most in daily life and refers to financial aid, help with services at home, with the care of children, the sick and the elderly.
Cardoso MJ et al, indicates that having social support positively influences health. Considers that knowing in depth the mechanisms that interact during stressful situations provides effective therapeutic options to minimize the negative impact that moments of uncertainty have on health.
Support networks
The support networks are the systems of people and institutions that provide help to the family. Conceived as social support networks are the social and health institutions that support the family, the institutions that provide public services, social care, community, political, religious organizations, self-help groups, the extended family, co-workers, friends and even one’s own family.
The most used social support networks were, the cohabitation family, the couple, to a lesser extent, health institutions, neighbors, friends, family of origin, religious associations, and they did not receive help from social and public institutions and co-workers. Family support continues to be the form most used by the majority of families, both in the family context and by the spouse or partner. The family is considered the main social support network that the individual has and therefore, it is recognized that it plays a buffering role against the tensions generated by daily life. Little support was found from networks such as neighbors, in the same community, friends and co-workers.
The benefits of social support
The psychologist Ángel García de La Palmas, raises the beneficial health effects of social support, They come in two directions. Support as a “main effect” occurs when social networks regularly provide positive experiences, adequate information, which provides a positive, stabilizing effect. The other direction is the “stress moderator” support, in this case it plays a role in two different moments, it can intervene in the evaluation of the event, attenuating its stressful effect and between the experience of stress and the beginning of the reaction, reducing the importance of the event, reassuring so that the reaction is less.4
Draws attention to low presence of institutions health, religious and other public institutions such as social networks. It is evident that public, social and health institutions must make more present help to families, providing programs or activities that are oriented towards families. It is highlighted that the families’ contacts with the networks were few.
Family perceptions
Satisfaction with the support received was acceptablealthough it is observed that almost half of the families are not totally satisfied with the support received, so it cannot be said that the families experienced total well-being in relation to the help received.
More than half of the families perceive the support received as insufficient, not receiving the support they needed. González N, considers the actual support that exists as important as that which the subject perceives as potentially available.5
If we assume that social support networks are decisive for the family to successfully face the demands of their daily life, even more so when they are “in trouble” and they are also recognized as a protective resource for family health. Public institutions must be able to fulfill their social role, gaining the trust of the population to maintain and coordinate actions aimed at achieving a higher state of social well-being.
Conclusions
- The study recognizes the importance of social support, with social networks constituting a platform to cushion the effects of events on family life.
- The most support received is emotional and from family networks. Recognizing the family as an important agent of social support
- The families studied require greater instrumental support, which refers to financial aid, help with services at home, with the care of children, the sick and the elderly. These lack of support that families suffer increase their vulnerability.
- The most used social support network was the family, the rest of the networks have not fully fulfilled their functions.
- The support provided to families did not meet all their needs, perceiving it as insufficient.
recommendations
- It is necessary to analyze existing policies to guarantee social support networks, making those that exist more effective and developing…