A Study on Social Support and Depression by Gender among Adults

This study was to compare social support and depression by gender, to investigate related factors, and to inquire effect of social support on depression by gender.

This study analyzed raw data from a project funded by Jeju Province. The data were collected through home visit interview from 750 households which were selected by using randomized cluster sampling method. CES-D and MOS SSS were used for measuring depression and social support. Data obtained from 896 adults were analyzed using t-test, chi2 test and hierarchical regression.

There was no significant difference of depression prevalence, presenting 15.2% for men and 14.5% for women. The related factors were marital status, educational level, and socioeconomic status for men and only socioeconomic status for women. The result of hierarchical regression presented that social support was significant on depression, showing increase of R2 from .151 to .328 when adding social support to other variables for men, increase of R2 from .058 to .192 for women.

The social support was an influential factor on depression both men and women, the development of strategies considering risk population by gender for enhancing social support to prevent and to manage depression was suggested.