Knowledge about how social support operates under specific circumstances lags behind the amount of research on the relationship between social support and well-being. Therefore, the purpose of our research was to study the mechanisms through which social support influences psychological well-being under stressful circumstances. We distinguished between perceived available support and received support in evaluating a hypothetical model specifying the direct and indirect effects of support on depression of recently diagnosed breast cancer patients. Results from structural equation modeling show that available support has direct beneficial effects on depression and received support has indirect effects (via appraisal and coping). Moreover, dependent on the type of support and coping strategy in the analyses, other effects of available and received support were found.
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