The PRQ--a social support measure

The Personal Resource Questionnaire (PRQ) is a two-part measure of the multidimensional characteristics of social support. Part one provides descriptive information about the person's resources, the satisfaction with these resources, and whether or not there is a confidant. Part two contains a 25-item Likert scale developed according to Weiss's relational dimensions and a five-item Self-Help Ideology scale. The PRQ was administered as the measure of one of the independent variables in a study of 149 male or female spouses of individuals with multiple sclerosis. Content and face validity procedures were completed previous to the study. An internal consistency reliability coefficient of alpha = .89 was obtained for the PRQ Part 2. Moderate intercorrelations for the dimensional subscales--intimacy, social integration, worth, and assistance--indicate that there is some overlap of these dimensions. Low intercorrelations between nurturance and the other four subscales suggest that nurturance is an independent scale. Modest predictive validity coefficients were obtained. At the present time the intended use of the PRQ is for research. Plans for tool development include obtaining further construct validity information and test-retest reliability.