Life Stress and Social Supports in Depressed Inpatients

The presence of adequate social supports has been associated with a reduced incidence of psychological symptoms. It is unclear, however, whether the protective influence of social supports is because of a direct positive effect on psychological functioning or a stress-buffering effect. Furthermore, most research on life stress and social supports has focused on community-based rather than clinical samples. The present study attempts to clarify the relationship between life stress and social supports related to psychological symptoms in 84 adult, nonpsychotic, depressed inpatients. Subjects were categorized according to their responses on the Life Experiences Survey and the Social Supports Inventory. Subjects were then assessed using both structured interviews and self-report measures of depression and suicide potential, as well as other psychological symptoms. Although both life stress and social supports were significantly related to a variety of psychological symptoms, the interaction between these variables was not significantly related to psychological symptomatology. Life events and social supports were found to exert their effects independently. This argues against the stress-buffering theory in favor of the direct-effects theory of social supports, at least when applied to inpatient samples.