Características psicométricas da versão portuguesa da Escala Multidimensional de Suporte Social Percebido (Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support - MSPSS)

Abstract

The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) originally developed by Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, and Farley (1998) was designed to subjectively assess social support from family, friends and significant others. This work‘s aim is to study the factorial structure, reliability and construct validity of the Portuguese version of MSPSS. The scale was assessed in a group of students (N = 454), a group of the general population (N = 261) and a group of patients with major depression (N = 100). The factor analysis revealed the existence of three factors (family, friends and significant others); and the scale showed good internal consistency with Cronbach’s alphas between .85 and .95, regarding all three factors, the three groups and both genders. The construct validity was adequate and test-retest stability in the group of students and the general population had values between .40 and .91. The Cronbach’s alphas for the retest ranged between .95 and .87. The MSPSS shown to have good psychometric properties for use in students, subjects from the general population and in populations with major depression, and need now to further research in other samples and using follow-up studies.