Psychometric Properties of a Brief Version of the Escala de Satisfação com o Suporte Social for Children and Adolescents

The main objective of this study was to develop a brief version of the Escala de Satisfação com o Suporte Social for children and adolescents (Ribeiro, 1999). A representative sample of 3195 children and adolescents was obtained from 5th and 7th graders throughout all five Portuguese regions. The results showed a good internal consistency for the social support satisfaction factor, alpha = 0.84; acceptable for the necessity for activities connected to social support factor, alpha = 0.69. By using ANOVA, gender, age and socioeconomic status related differences were identified. A confirmatory factorial analysis was done and an adjusted model was found by taking off item 5. The concurrent validity was inspected with measures related to social support, such as optimism, self-worth and perceptions of health related quality of life. With this analysis, we verified that women and younger participants (< 12 years) showed a higher social support satisfaction. Medium-high socioeconomic status participants showed a higher negative social support satisfaction. These results suggest the validity of the scale in assesing perceptions of social support.