The role of social support in the psychological illness of women.
Loraine Vivian Gaino, Letícia Yamawaka de Almeida, Jaqueline Lemos de Oliveira and 3 others
PMID 31340345WHAT IT FOUND
43.4% of women had suspected mental disorder.
Lower satisfaction with support and being a mother were each linked to about seven times more chances of it.
Key findings
0143.4% of the 141 women had suspected mental disorder.
02Satisfaction with social support was negatively correlated with suspected mental disorder (-0.374; p <= 0.001), while the number of supporters was not significant (-0.142; p = 0.094).
03In logistic regression, women who were not very satisfied with support had an odds ratio of 7.088 (CI 2.18-22.94; p = 0.001), and mothers had an odds ratio of 7.2592 (CI 2.01-26.17; p = 0.002), for suspected mental disorder.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only 141 of 220 invited women took part, and many refused because they had no time. The study was done in one Family Health Unit serving disadvantaged areas, so it may not apply to other settings. Only women were studied, so it says nothing about men. Social support and symptoms were measured at the same time, so the study cannot show cause and effect. The outcome was a self-reported symptom screen, not a clinical psychiatric diagnosis. The confidence intervals for the odds ratios were wide.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that improving social support will reduce mental disorder in women. This study measured support and symptoms at one time in one primary care unit, and the associations do not prove cause.