Facets of support related to well-being: quantitative social isolation and perceived family support in a sample of elderly women

The purpose of this study was to examine the independent and interactive relationships of measures of network embeddedness and perceived social support with mental and physical health measures from responses of a sample of 271 community-dwelling elderly women. Quantitative social isolation was measured as the co-occurrence of low network embeddedness with family and with friends. There was a threshold effect such that quantitatively isolated participants had poorer psychological well-being and functional health than did nonisolated participants. This effect was independent of perceived support levels. The pattern was different for perceived social support. Elderly women with low perceived family support had poorer psychological well-being regardless of perceived support from friends or network embeddedness. Implications are discussed for several unanswered questions in the social support literature, including possible interventions for the quantitatively isolated and for those with low levels of perceived support.