Issue 3/4 Vol. 33 1991

Social support in adolescence: Construction and validation of an assessment inventory

BLIESENER, Th.

Previous theoretical and empirical research on social support has almost completely neglected developmental aspects of childhood and adolescence. A newly developed questionnaire for the assessment of social support in adolescents, the Fragebogen zur Erfassung der Sozialen Unterstützung (FESU), was used to record descriptive data of its development in two studies. Subjects were 654 and 366 adolescents. Psychometric analyses showed a high level of consistence and stability in the FESU. The results of the construct validation on the relation between social support and family climate were, in contrast, only moderate. The discussion relates the findings to previous research and considers the role of subjective presentations and dispositional characteristics in the assessment of social support.

Keywords: social support, psychometric analysis

Short Title: Bliesener, Th. (1991) PsyBeit 3-4:434

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