Abstract
Objectives: There are many instruments for the assessment of the personal social network of persons, but mostly these are either research instruments not suitable for clinical purposes or do not include measures of social support and strain. This paper describes the “Multidimensional Social Contact Circle” (MuSC), a new interview designed to perform a multidimensional assessment of the social net in clinical practice or research.
Method: The concept, application, and evaluation of the MuSC are presented. Based on a sample of psychosomatic patients (N=101) the retestreliability (one week) is reported and descriptive results are presented for illustrative purposes.
Results: The time needed for the assessment was 12.5 min. Retest-reliability was very good for the variable “size of the entire net” (rtt = 0.95), and moderate to high for indices of social support (rtt = 0.59–0.87), social strain (rtt = 0.41–0.81), and satisfaction (rtt = 0.64–0.71). Unselected inpatients in psychosomatic rehabilitation reported a total size of their social net of 20.8 persons (SD=10.2; Min=4, Max=51) and contact in 5 (SD=1.3) areas on average. 36% had contacts in 6–7 areas of life and can be seen as optimally integrated. 8% felt they got “very good”, 45% “good”, 41% “moderate” and 6% “insufficient” support. 2% reported “much”, 25% “moderate”, 56% “mild” and 17% “no” burdens.
Conclusion: TheMuSC is an economic and reliable instrument for the diagnosis of the social net. It is applicable in clinical practice as well as research projects.
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