Social support help to contribute to positive adjustment and to buffer against stressors and adversities, including medical as well as psychiatric problems. 

The benefit of social support

Emotional support (offers esteem, attachment reassurance); instrumental support (offers material goods and services); and informational support (offers advice, guidance, and feedback).

Primary types of social support

Peer support can enhance the number of individuals that a person with a psychiatric disorder can turn to for support, offer a sense of belonging and positive feedback of a person's own self-worth. 

Social support in peer support

- Informal Support
  - family, friends, neighbors, and the surrounding community
- Formals Support
  - Professionals and Agencies
- Both are important components in relieving parents' stress
- Can also include emotional and practical support
  - Ex: Childcare, financial support
- Significant in determining the HRQOL in families of children with disabilities

Types of Social Support in relation for Caretakers of children with Disabilities

Social support is the availability of people on whom we can rely: people who let us know that they care about, value, and love us and are willing to assist us.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Social support

Experiential knowledge

Helper-therapy principle

Social learning theory

Social comparison theory

Five theories that underlie peer-delivered services

Solomon, P. (2004). Peer support/peer provided services underlying processes, benefits, and critical ingredients. Psychiatric rehabilitation journal, 27(4), 392. https://doi.org/10.2975/27.2004.392.401

Peer support/peer provided services underlying processes, benefits, and critical ingredients.

These theories are inferred rather than tested in the domain of self-help groups.  This is due to the culture of self-help groups that make traditional research methodologies difficult to employ. 

Lack of testing of these theories

Experiential knowledge is specialized information and perspectives that people obtain from living through the experience of having a severe psychiatric disorder.

Experiential knowledge

Peers are seen as more credible role models for others with psychiatric disorders, so interactions with peers who are successfully coping with their illness are more likely to result in positive behavior change on the part of other peers. 

Social learning theory in peer support

Individuals are attracted to others who share commonalities with themselves, such as psychiatric disorders, in order to establish a sense of normalcy.

Social comparison theory

Peer support services afford individuals the opportunity to benefit themselves from helping others. This phenomenon is called the helper-therapy principle. 

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