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Updated: Jun 9, 2025

The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test
Published on: November 19, 2015
A Systematic Review of Social Support Instruments for Measurement-Based Care in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
John C Fortney1,2, Natalia Garcia2,3, Tracy L Simpson2,4
1VA Health Services Research and Development, Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care, Seattle, WA, USA.
Purpose:
Social support is a treatment target for individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but is not systematically assessed in clinical care. This review evaluated the quality of patient-reported social support instruments used in PTSD research to identify candidates for measurement-based care (MBC) with this population.
Method:
A systematic review identified all validated measures of social support used in research with traumatized populations after 1990. Instrument development/validation studies were then evaluated using components of the updated COSMIN guidelines. Instruments were rated for clinical utility and evidence of their psychometric properties in use with traumatized individuals was synthesized.
Results:
Twenty-nine instruments were identified across 231 studies. Evaluation of development articles found 14 instruments with sufficient evidence of content validity and internal consistency reliability that could be considered for clinical use. Of these, nine had comparable properties in traumatized samples and could be preliminarily included in MBC of social support in the treatment of PTSD. Additional studies on measures' responsiveness and test-retest reliability are needed.
Conclusions:
Existing measures of social support could improve clinical care of PTSD when used routinely to provide feedback on this critical component of health. MBC of social support may also improve clinical care of other psychiatric conditions.
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