Social support, social disability and their role as predictors of depression among patients with congestive heart failure
Sammanfattning
The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of social support variables, personality, clinical variables (New York Heart Associations classification), and social disability upon depression. The sample consisted of 119 patients with symptomatic heart failure, recruited from an outpatient hospital practice. The patients underwent brief physical examination and completed a set of questionnaires. The analysis revealed that social network support was rated as most supportive. So significant effects of the social support variables upon social disability were detected. Path-analyses showed that poor network support, social disability and neuroticism were positively associated with depression.