Social support and cardiovascular health: Adaptation of a social support scale for hypertensive and diabetic patients in primary care, Chile

Validate an instrument to measure the Perceived Social Support in outpatients who are in treatment to hypertension and/or diabetes mellitus ii. Observational and exploratory design with mixed methods, qualitative and quantitative. Two community health centers from the municipality of Puente Alto (Santiago, Chile). Hypertensive and/or diabetic patients between 18 and 65 years old. A purposive sample was undertaken for the qualitative study, and a random sample for the final survey. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the constructs of social support as perceived by patients. According to expert opinion and literature review, a scale of social support was selected and a pilot study was conducted in 40 patients, then we interviewed in depth to some of those participants. The instrument was modified according the results of this process. The final version was applied to 250 participants. The construct existence was verified in the population. In the adaptation, one item was eliminated. The alpha of Cronbach was 0.89 and the factorial analysis had the same four factors from the original study. Nine new items obtained from the focal groups were added to the instrument, obtaining an alpha of Cronbach of 0.92. The final instrument has good psychometric proprieties, and is applicable in our population. The additional items from the qualitative study improve its internal consistency, but don't add new information about Perceived Social Support. This is consistent with other studies, and suggests the application of the original version of the instrument.