Social support in female patients with rheumatoid arthritis compared to healthy controls

The objective of this study was to investigate the amount of social support received by female patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared to healthy controls. Two hundred and sixty-four patients and 61 healthy controls were assessed. Social support was assessed by the Social Support Questionnaire of Transactions (SSQT) measuring five different support types: Daily and problem-oriented emotional support, social companionship, and daily and problem-oriented instrumental support. Compared with healthy controls, RA patients reported significantly less daily emotional ( p = 0.024) and problem-oriented emotional support ( p = 0.024), as well as less social companionship ( p = 0.022) when network size and sociodemographic variables were controlled for. Furthermore, among older subjects (> 57 years) RA patients had a lower score on social companionship than controls. However, RA patients with few or no friends (< 4 friends) received more problem-oriented instrumental support than the controls.