Meta-analyses have become common in the social and biomedical sciences.The World Health Organization defines mental health as a state of well-being, that in which the individual knows their capabilities and uses them effectively and productively that will be useful for their respective communities ( 1). Conclusions produced by meta-analysis are statistically stronger than the analysis of any single study, due to increased numbers of subjects, greater diversity among subjects, or accumulated effects and results. In the third edition, editors Harris Cooper, Larry Hedges, and Jeff Valentine present updated versions of classic chapters and. When the first edition of The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis was published in 1994, it quickly became the definitive reference for conducting meta-analyses in both the social and behavioral sciences.Social support is a phenomenon that involves interactions of people so that when a person offers social interaction, it has an important role in his health ( 3). Social support represents the amount of support that a person perceives and reports receive it. In this respect, it is very important to pay attention to social factors influencing mental health, and perceived social support is one of those factors. Social factors, which can play an important role in creating, maintaining, and promoting health, have been a major role in incidence, prevalence and persistence of the disease ( 2). Biological, psychological, social, cultural, economic and spiritual, it should be acknowledged that health and mental illness do not simply have biological or psychological aspects, but also have concurrent social dimensions and nature.This helps to minimize bias in these studies, and also reduce errors ( 12). Hence, in the face of much varied and sometimes contradictory scientific information for quick and precise extraction of information, it is necessary that resources be extracted systematically and results be integrated to achieve a tangible and overall result. For instance ( 6– 8) found a strong correlation between social support and mental health, and ( 9– 11) found a weak correlation in this regard. However, each study has been performed on a different population, and has used different instruments, sampling methods and statistical populations, which have resulted in different results. Numerous studies have been performed on the effect of social support on health, quality of life, and especially mental health over the recent decades. Social support provides physical and psychological advantages for people faced with stressful physical and psychosocial events, and is considered as a factor reducing the psychological distress when faced with stressful events ( 5).
![]() Results showed that significant effect size of research variables on patient adherence and the content and methodology variables influenced the size effect ( 17). (In a meta-analysis, 122 research studies on relationship between structural or functional social support with patient adherence to medical regimens were examined ( 17). Results showed that social support can significantly predict all health outcomes, except physical compatibility, at the level of (0.0001) ( 16). Another study examined correlation of 16 health outcome variables, including health status, physical symptoms, psychological symptoms, depression, role performance, behavior, physical compatibility, psychological adjustment, living adaptability, coping behaviors, stress, health belief, health promoting behaviors, quality of life, well-being, and self-actualization with social support. ![]() The Hunter-Schmidt meta-analysis approach was used to calculate the combined effect size (the combined effect size of the variables in both fixed-effect and random-effect model). In the data analysis, the correlation coefficient was calculated as the estimator of the effect size in each study. The Comprehensive Meta-analysis software (CMA-2) was used to analyze the collected data. The worksheet included the title of the study, authors’ details, university name, website information, the year and place of the study, the study variables, research questions and hypotheses, sex of the samples, the statistical population, sample size, occupation, educational level, province, mental health instrument, type of support, the study design, statistical tests, significance level, and the effect size. The worksheet was specifically designed by the researcher to record the required data of the meta-analysis. Quality assessment and data analysisIn the next step, the data related to those 64 studies were encoded and then recorded in the worksheet of the meta-analysis. Office 365 product key for windows 10Most of the studies (77%) had been performed both on men and women, and most of the studies (almost 90%) had been performed from 2006 through 2013 ( Table 1). About 36% of the studies had been performed in Tehran, Iran. The Q and I2 tests were used to analyze the homogeneity of the studies.In this study, 64 studies (13 theses and 51 articles) were collected and analyzed. The results of Egger’s regression (t=1.505 & p>0.05) showed that the intercept of the regression line in the studies was almost zero, which implies no publication bias in the studies. The mean of effect size of 64 studies was obtained as 0.356, based on the fixed-effect model and 0.330, based on the random-effect model, which was higher than the average level in the standards presented by Cohen ( 19), and indicated the effectiveness of social support in mental health in the Iranian population. Almost one third of the studies had used cluster sampling method to select samples. The most popular questionnaire used to measure social support in the studies was Zimet’s questionnaire and then Philip’s and Stanford’s questionnaires. About 60% of the studies had used GHQ-28 to measure mental health, and 20% of the studies had used GHQ-12. The studies performed on the older adults and patients comprised 14% and 11%, respectively. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorJason ArchivesCategories |