Abstract
In recent years, the concept of social support has emerged as a major psychosocial variable in health-related research.
The study was conducted to evaluate the validity and reliability of the JPRQ 85 Part 2. The PRQ85 (Brandt & Weinert, 1985) is a self-report questionnaire designed to measure multiple dimensions of perceived social support. The PRQ has two parts: part one addresses some aspects of a person's network structure; part two measures the respondent's perceived level of social support. Part two, which has been used in this study, is based upon Weiss' (1974) definitions of social support, with subscales representing intimacy, social integration, nuturance, worth, and assistance. The PRQ85 Part 2 consists of 25 items with a 7-point linkert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to“strongly agree.” Validity and reliability were obtained.
PRQ 85 Part2 was translated to Japanese. The items were evaluated for content validity and psychometric properties by six Japanese researchers who hold either a Ph.D. or M.S. degree in nursing, and five mothers who were bilingual. For the JPRQ85 Part 2, four items (items b, e, u, and x) were improved for precision in meaning by translation to Japanese.
The reliability was evaluated by 181 Japanese mothers each of whom had an only child under 3-year-olds. The range of scores (3.0 - 6.7) and the mean (M= 5.38, SD =.63) for social support indicate that Japanese mothers perceived that they had social support. The alpha reliability for the JPRQ 85 Part 2 was.89 which was acceptable.
The JPRQ 85 Part 2 thought to be useful in assessing the Japanese mothers' social support who have young childeren with minor illnesses.