ABSTRACT
Social support is a complex and multifaceted construct. Thus, It is important that a given social support scale be theoretically grounded and its purview clearly defined. The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability, validity and factor structure of the Iranian version of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support [MSPSS]. The sample study included 176 consecutive myocardial infarction [MI] patients admitted to the coronary care unit [CCU] ward of nine hospitals in Isfahan, Iran, and 71 consecutive subjects from the general population. They all filled out the final Iranian version of the MSPSS and also 71 participants filled out the MSPSS twice over a 2 month period. Factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha coefficient and Pearson's correlation coefficient correlation were used to analyze data. Factor analysis of the scores of the patient and healthy samples yielded a three factor structure, including family, friends and significant others. The percentage of variance explained by the three factors in the patient sample and healthy sample were 77.87% and 78.55%, respectively. Cronbach's alpha coefficient has been found to be 0.84 for the scale and 0.90, 0.93 and 0.85, respectively, for the friends, significant others and family subscales from the patient sample, and 0.92 for the scale and 0.89, 0.92 and 0.87, respectively, for the friends, significant others and family subscales from the healthy sample. Test-retest stability over a 2 month period yielded 0.84 for the scale and 0.73, 0.78 and 0.84, respectively, for the friends, significant others and family subscales from the healthy sample. The findings proved the three factor structure of the Iranian version of the MSPSS and indicated that the Iranian version of the MSPSS is a reliable, valid and acceptable measure of perceived social support.