The relationship between social support levels and general health conditions of people with chronic diseases

People with chronic diseases over the age of 18 who applied to Akdeniz University Family Medicine outpatient clinics, agreed to participate in the study and gave consent were included in our study. It was aimed to determine the relationship between the level of social support perceived by people with chronic diseases and their general health status.Our research, which is a descriptive and cross-sectional study, was applied face-to-face through a questionnaire. A research questionnaire asking the participants who accepted to participate in the study about their sociodemographic characteristics, the Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale (MSPSS) to evaluate the level of social support they perceived, and the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) to determine their general health status, was applied with a face-to-face interview technique. Analyzes were performed with SPSS (Statistics Package Program for Social Sciences) version 25.0. Statistical significance level was accepted as p<0.05.The mean age of the 341 participants evaluated within the scope of the study was 53.86±12.16 years. 41.1% of the participants are women; 76.8% are married; 33.7% are undergraduate graduates. Hypertension in 54% of the participants, diabetes mellitus in 66%, hyperlipidemia in 17.3%, hypothyroidism in 16.4%, heart failure in 4.7%, COPD in 4.7% and 8.8% have other chronic diseases. Drug use rates related to chronic disease are 91.8%. The support of the person or people with whom the participants live during the disease process is very good at 37.5%. MSPSS total scale score 58.83±16.59/84; the family support subscale score is 22.66±5.13/28. Among the BSI subscales, the Depression score is 9.15±9.38/60 and the Anxiety score is 10.74±8.69/65. The participants perceived general social support is at a high level. Social support is mostly received from family members. The participants had low levels of mental and somatic symptoms. It was found that there was a negative relationship between the subscales of the Brief Symptom Inventory and the subscales and total score of the Multidimensional Perceived Social Support scale in people with chronic illness (p<0.01). It was determined that as the perceived social support levels of individuals with chronic diseases increased; anxiety, depression, negative self, somatization, hostility symptoms decreased and general health status improved.Conclusion and recommendations: It was found that social support has a significant and decreasing effect on mental and somatic symptoms, as the social support perceived by individuals with chronic diseases increases, physical and mental symptoms decrease, general health status improves and family members have an important place as a source of social support. It is important to provide social support to people with chronic diseases to help them cope with their problems.