Article

Social support is accepted as a protective factor for stressful life events, which helps maintain physical and psychological health (e.g. Cohen and Willis, 1985). Studies have been conducted to reveal the forms, mechanisms and sources of social support, by using different samples like trauma survivors (e.g. Swickert and Hittner, 2009), people with psychological disorders (e.g. Scrandis, 2005) and caregivers (e.g. Frank et al., 2001). There are three forms of social support; net-work resources, social behaviours and appraisal of support. Network resources are the actual number of people who are ready to supply social support when needed, and social behaviours include the behaviours in pursuit of getting social support, that is, support seeking coping (Hobfoll and Vaux, 1993). While network resources and social behaviours are regarded as objective, the third form – appraisal of support – is subjective in nature (Norberg et al., 2006). The subjective level of satisfaction with received support is named as perceived social support (PSS). It refers to the belief that when support is needed, others will be ready to provide it (Pierce et al.