Self-reported health and depression among EIRA cohort: a moderated mediation model of sex and perceived social support.

BACKGROUND

The positive relationship between health and good perceived social support has been widely demonstrated in the scientific literature. It is known that having a good social support influences the proper maintenance of health even as a protective factor, besides being a good predictor in the recovery of health during a disease process, influencing differently men and women.

AIM: This project aims to study the moderating effects of perceived social support in the relationship between depression and self-perceived health according to gender, after a complex multiple-risk intervention was carried out in patients of primary health care with low social support.

METHODS

A cluster randomized clinical trial was developed in the subgroup of patients included in phase 3 of the EIRA project. CONSORT recommendations were followed to present the results. To determine the mediating effect between social support and self-perceived health, three regression analyses were carried out using the procedure designed by Hayes through the PROCESS macro for SPSS.

RESULTS

3,062 people (54.9% women) participated in the study. Men reported experiencing more social support and self-perceived health (p < 0.001) than women at the beginning of the study, but women reported higher social support at post-intervention. Moderation analyses showed that, post-intervention, those women (b simple = -2.9867, p < 0.001) and males (b simple = -1.4337, p < 0.001) who scored lower in depression reported higher social support.

CONCLUSION

In primary care, it is necessary to encourage intervention strategies that promote social networks as a key element of positive action aimed at maintaining and improving the population's health, especially in adults and more specifically in women.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT03136211.