‘We see they are abandoned’: Social support between people discharged from long-term psychiatric hospitalizations and their neighbors in Argentina

Liza Murlender, Karen Choe, Marina Ayelén Fernandez, Martin Agrest and Sara Elena Ardila-Gómez

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2024, vol. 70, issue 3, 498-506

Abstract: Background: Neighbors are an important component of personal social network (PSN) and despite their peripheral role and being considered as familiar strangers, they typically provide instrumental support. For people who is discharged after long-term psychiatric hospitalizations, neighbors would offer other types of social support and play a different role fostering the process of becoming full member of a given community. Aims: To analyze the effects of neighboring on both, those who have had long-term psychiatric hospitalizations and their neighbors. Method: Data was collected between 2020 and 2021, including interviews with formal care staff of three housing support experiences in Argentina, and short testimonies from formerly discharged mental health service users living in the community and their neighbors. We analyzed the data using the Framework Method with a focus on the different aspects of social support and equity and reciprocity theories. Results: Results suggest that emotional support was a frequent function displayed by neighbors toward people with a history of long-term psychiatric hospitalizations, which differs from typical neighboring relationships. Conclusions: Despite reciprocity was observed, users and neighbors displayed an unbalanced helping relationship.

Keywords: Psychiatric rehabilitation; community integration; social support; social networking; Argentina (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00207640231216929 (text/html)

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:sae:socpsy:v:70:y:2024:i:3:p:498-506

DOI: 10.1177/00207640231216929

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Social Psychiatry
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().