Social Support Reciprocity in Terms of Psychosocial Variables in Care Taking and Care Giving Processes of Spinal Cord Injury Patients and their Care Givers

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of social support reciprocity's and different kinds of social support's on the relationship between psychopathology symptoms and illness psychosocial adjustment of spinal cord injury patients. Within the scope of this study Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale Self-Report, The Brief Symptom Inventory, The Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviors, The Provided Social Support Scale, The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support were used. The participants were 31 patients who were diagnosed with tetraplegia and paraplegia and received treatment in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Units in hospitals in İstanbul and their caregivers. The results showed a negative relationship between psychopathology symptoms and illness psychosocial adjustment. Among the scores of perceived social support, received social support, given social support and the index score of social support reciprocity's common effects on the relationship between level of psychopathology symptoms and illness psychosocial adjustment, only social support reciprocity showed sign moderator effect on the relationship between psychopathology symptoms and illness psychosocial adjustment. According to these results, in patients with low index score of social support reciprocity, a strong relationship was found between psychopathology symptoms and illness psychosocial adjustment.