The purpose of this study was to identify the relationships between social support, pregnancy stress, and anxiety of pregnant women and to determine their effect on health-related quality of life.

A total of 202 pregnant women participated in this study. The collected data were analyzed by the frequency and percentage, mean and standard deviation, independent t-test, ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation coefficients, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis using the STATA/IC 15.1 program.

As a result of this study, the major factors affecting the health-related quality of life of pregnant women were identified as anxiety, educational level, social support, and marital satisfaction. Social support has a positive effect on the health-related quality of life of pregnant women (β=0.27, p< .001), but anxiety had a negative effect (β=−0.56, p<.001).

When planning nursing interventions to improve the health-related quality of life of pregnant women, strategies for lowering the anxiety and improving the social support of pregnant women should be considered.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating effect of social support and its relationship between workplace violence and depression in nurses.

This was a cross-sectional descriptive study that included 128 registered nurses who had worked at medical institutions, except those who experienced depression without workplace violence in Korea. The data were collected between July and August 2020 using online surveys. The mediating effect was performed using multiple hierarchical regression.

The rate of workplace violence was 82.8% (n=106). According to the type of workplace violence, the rates of verbal violence, physical threat, and physical violence were 79.7%, 67.2%, and 33.6%, respectively. A positive correlation between workplace violence and depression was found (r=.30, p<.001), whereas social support showed negative correlations with workplace violence (r=−.18, p=.045) and depression (r=−.26, p=003). This study found a partial mediating effect between workplace violence and depression.

It is important to develop strategies to improve the social support of nurses who experienced workplace violence and effectively prevent and manage depression.

Daily functioning is an important aspect of chronic pain management, particularly for individuals living with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). Previous studies have established that emotional support from significant others is beneficial for chronic pain patients. However, emotional support can be discrepant from one’s preference and can also fluctuate. Thus, the present study investigates the role of instability in emotional support discrepancy on the daily functioning of patients with CRPS.

Participants consisted of 21 CRPS patients. Google Forms was used to obtain daily diary ratings over 15 days.The mean square of successive differences was calculated as an indicator of instability of emotional support discrepancy. Statistical analysis was conducted using hierarchical linear modeling.

Hierarchical linear modeling reveals that the moderating effect of instability in emotional support discrepancy on the relationship between daily pain severity daily activity avoidance (coefficient=0.01, t (292)=5.57, p<.001), activity interference (coefficient=0.01, t (292)=5.98, p<.001), distraction (coefficient=0.01, t (292)=5.10, p= .007) was statistically significant.

The results of this study suggest that instability in emotional support discrepancy reduces the buffering effect of emotional support.

Although social support for patients with chronic illnesses buffers the detrimental impacts of stress, if it is not provided appropriately, it can be a source of stress. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Korean version of the Contextual Illness Support Scale (K-CISS) for patients with rheumatoid disease.

A cross-sectional survey containing measures on social support, depression, anxiety, and quality of life was conducted with patients with rheumatoid disease (N=323).

The construct validity was supported by the results of the exploratory structural equation modeling, confirming the original two-factor model (positive and problematic support) and significant correlations between these two factors and health-related variables (i.e., depression, anxiety, and quality of life). The concurrent validity was supported by the significant positive correlation between positive and social support that was measured by the Korean version of the DUKE-UNC functional social support questionnaire. The internal consistency of the K-CISS was satisfactory, with Cronbach’s α values of .96 and .72 for the subscales.

These results suggest that K-CISS is a reliable and valid measure of two aspects of social support.