Age and the operationalization of social support.

In most studies social network is operationalized without any consideration of age. But it is to be expected that both the prevalence and the impact on health of the various sources of social support change through life. If this is true, then the use of a global index may lead to distorted results regarding age changes of the social network. In a cross-sectional study of 1500 occupationally active, Danish men aged 16-74, the hypothesized age dependencies were studied with health operationalized as psychological well-being and social support divided into support from wife, children, family and friends. The prevalence of support from the wife increased with age, whereas her impact on health was only significantly positive in the age range 30-49. Support from family and friends was most prevalent among the youngest, but it had a positive impact on health both among the young and the old. The results regarding impact on health are corroborated by two other studies on mortality. These findings point to methodological errors that may distort results when global network measures are used irrespective of the ages of the participants studied.