Open AccessPsychometric Performance of a Novel Measure of Social Support Among Spanish-Speaking Immigrant Latino Gay Men
Author(s) -
Paul A. Gilbert,
Scott D. Rhodes
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
hispanic journal of behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.372
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1552-6364
pISSN - 0739-9863
DOI - 10.1177/0739986312446290
Subject(s) - socioemotional selectivity theory , psychology , immigration , confirmatory factor analysis , social support , social psychology , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , gerontology , structural equation modeling , medicine , statistics , mathematics , archaeology , history
Social support is protective for a variety of health outcomes, and individuals living outside their country of origin ("sojourners") might use social support in distinctive ways. The authors performed a confirmatory factor analysis of the 18-item Index of Sojourner Social Support (ISSS) using data obtained from 190 Spanish-speaking immigrant Latino gay men and men who have sex with men (MSM) in North Carolina, a marginalized group for whom social support might be especially salient. The authors failed to replicate the original distinction between socioemotional and instrumental support; however, a reduced set of 11 ISSS items appeared to be a very good measure of a single latent factor, with high factor loadings (λ ≥ .87) and excellent internal consistency reliability (α = .97). The authors encourage further research to understand the psychometric properties of the ISSS, to further elaborate the most meaningful dimensions of social support among immigrant populations, and to establish whether associations exist between ISSS scores and health-related behaviors.