Social networks and psychosocial support among disabled people

Myfanwy Morgan, Donald L. Patrick and John R. Charlton

Social Science & Medicine, 1984, vol. 19, issue 5, 489-497

Abstract: Analysis of the network characteristics and nature of social ties among physically disabled people living in an inner London borough showed network size rather than network type was related to the availability of psychosocial support, reflecting the important role of both related and non-related people in the provision of this form of support. The study also questioned three commonly held assumptions. Firstly, in contrast to the image of physically disabled people as lacking social ties, those with a high level of disability, although having a lower level of social contact outside the household than other groups, did not differ significantly in other aspects of their network structures and support. Secondly, in contrast to the characterisation of inner city areas as relatively homogeneous and as lacking locally based ties, the inner London area studied comprised a variety of network types with a large proportion of respondents deriving support from people living in close proximity. Thirdly, whereas the presence of household members, and especially a spouse, tend to be equated with the availability of strong emotional support, considerable numbers of married people lacked such support. This suggests measures to promote psychosocial support need to be fairly broadly based and cautions against using marital status as a proxy measure of support.

Date: 1984
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(84)90044-3
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:19:y:1984:i:5:p:489-497

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().