Brazilian version of Social Support Appraisals: reliability and validity studies

Abstract

The Social Support Appraisals evaluates the perception of children and adolescents on social support from family, friends, teachers and others in the community. The objective of the study was to evaluate the reliability and construct validity of the Brazilian version of the instrument. Participated in 766 children and adolescents aged 9 to 18 years. To collect the data was used the Identification Form, the Brazilian version of Social Support Appraisals and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Results: Factor analysis indicated a structure with five factors in which there have been items isolated on F5 factor. Therefore, the respective items were excluded and subsequent analyzes were performed considering the remaining 23 items. Internal consistency, the alpha index is equal to 0.89 for the total scale. Found divergent validity of the Brazilian version of Social Support Appraisals and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, being partially satisfactory. It is considered that this study makes available a reduced version of the instrument for use in future research in order to continue the investigation into the social support and associations with variables related to infant-juvenile development.