the role of social support is well recognized in health , psychological adjustment , and in the relation between stress and physical symptoms . social support is a multidimensional and complex construct that has both structural and functional aspects . the structural aspects of social support include quantitative properties of the social network such as size , range , proximity , and accessibility . as berkman et al . , argued that functional support refers to the quality of the support served by the structural component . perceived support refers to the perception of the recipient of accessibility and quality of support . a number of scales have been designed to assess social support , including in - person interviews and self - report questionnaires . the multidimensional scale of perceived social support ( mspss ) is one of these scales , which was originally developed by canty - mitchell and zimet . recently there has been a surge of interest in the use of the mspss across cultures . zimet et al . , have well argued that the mspss is a short scale ( 12 items total ) , its items are easy to understand and despite being a brief instrument it measures support from three sources . it leaves the definition of who the  significant other(s )  is ( are ) to the respondent . the mspss measures perception of social support from three sources : family , friends and significant others . psychometric properties of the mspss have been demonstrated among a number of different samples , including university students , psychiatric patients , urban adolescences , medical students , south african adolescences and teenagers of hong kong . the three - factor structure of the mspss was supported in all but one subsequent study . in a study done on the chinese version of the mspss by kee , the friends and significant others subscales it perhaps revealed that perceived social support varies among different cultures . due to the important role of perceived social support in psychological and physical health , unique features of the mspss are being discussed , bearing in mind that no research has demonstrated the persian version of this scale ; therefore , the purpose of the present study was to evaluate the reliability , validity and factor structure of the persian version of the mspss in an iranian sample . the mean age of the mi group was 56 years ( sd = 9.75 ) , 84% were male and 88.6% married . the average age of the healthy group was 74/4 years ( sd = 10.05 ) , 65% were male and 78% married . the mi group included anterior mi ( 48.3% ) and non - anterior mi ( 51.7% ) diagnosis . the focus of this study is on the persian version of the mspss . the original version of the scale , which is a 12-item questionnaire developed by zimet et al . this instrument provides response options ranging from 0 to 6 ( very strongly disagree to very strongly agree ) . the scale was translated for the present study . in this procedure , a person translated the questionnaire items from english to persian , and another translated them back to english . differences between original and back - translated statements were rare , carefully analyzed and easily resolved when necessary through revisions in the persian translation . psychometric properties of the english version of the mspss have been shown among several populations . the mspss terms used to describe sources of social support were specifically designed to allow respondents to interpret items in ways most relevant to themselves . for example , items that measure the significant others subscale refer to a  special person  who may be interpreted variously to mean a boyfriend / girlfriend , a teacher , a counselor , etc . , canty - mitchell and zimet well argued that use of more specific terms could have weakened the instrument ( e.g. , use of the boyfriend / girlfriend statement may refer to the existence of a romantic relationship ) . participation in this study was voluntary , anonymous and in compliance with institutional ethical guidelines . data collection from the mi patients occurred 2 weeks after mi , when the patients were in a coronary care unit ( ccu ) , and their physical conditions were stable . the healthy group responded to the scale simultaneously for the first time and again 2 months later . the questionnaire was administered in hospitals , and participants were informed of the voluntary nature of the study and anonymity of responses before administering the questionnaire . after data collection , the scale was scored and analyzed . principal - component factor analysis with oblique rotation , the mean age of the mi group was 56 years ( sd = 9.75 ) , 84% were male and 88.6% married . the average age of the healthy group was 74/4 years ( sd = 10.05 ) , 65% were male and 78% married . the mi group included anterior mi ( 48.3% ) and non - anterior mi ( 51.7% ) diagnosis . the focus of this study is on the persian version of the mspss . the original version of the scale , which is a 12-item questionnaire developed by zimet et al . , measures the perceived support from family , friends and significant others . this instrument provides response options ranging from 0 to 6 ( very strongly disagree to very strongly agree ) . the scale was translated for the present study . in this procedure , a person translated the questionnaire items from english to persian , and another translated them back to english . differences between original and back - translated statements were rare , carefully analyzed and easily resolved when necessary through revisions in the persian translation . psychometric properties of the english version of the mspss have been shown among several populations . the mspss terms used to describe sources of social support were specifically designed to allow respondents to interpret items in ways most relevant to themselves . for example , items that measure the significant others subscale refer to a  special person  who may be interpreted variously to mean a boyfriend / girlfriend , a teacher , a counselor , etc . , canty - mitchell and zimet well argued that use of more specific terms could have weakened the instrument ( e.g. , use of the boyfriend / girlfriend statement may refer to the existence of a romantic relationship ) . participation in this study was voluntary , anonymous and in compliance with institutional ethical guidelines . data collection from the mi patients occurred 2 weeks after mi , when the patients were in a coronary care unit ( ccu ) , and their physical conditions were stable . the healthy group responded to the scale simultaneously for the first time and again 2 months later . the questionnaire was administered in hospitals , and participants were informed of the voluntary nature of the study and anonymity of responses before administering the questionnaire . after data collection , the scale was scored and analyzed . principal - component factor analysis with oblique rotation , exploratory factor analysis was used to explore and refine the underlying structure of the items . prior the kaiser  meyer  olkin measure of sampling adequacy ( msa = 0.80 for the mi patients and = 0.87 for the healthy group ) was well for the two groups , and bartlett 's test of sphericity was significant (  = 1446.14 , p < 0.01 for mi patients ;  = 619.87 , p < 0.01 for healthy participants ) . given the stability of data , we conducted a principal - component factor analysis with oblique rotation . oblique rotation was chosen to allow correlation between factors . using the eigenvalue > 1 criterion and a scree plot analysis there was no item loaded on two or more factors with a difference < 0.1 . cross - loading with a difference > 0.1 was not unexpected , because we expected some correlation between factors . therefore , consistent with results from prior studies , three factors were extracted , which coincided with the family , friends and significant others subscales . the factors combined to account for 77.9% and 78.5% of the variances in the mi patients and healthy respondents , respectively . the oblique rotated factor pattern matrix indicated that all items loaded highly ( 0.74 or better ) on their respective subscale , with minimal cross - loadings ( all less than 0.29 ) for the mi patients [ table 1 ] , and some high - cross loading ( higher than 0.50 ) but with a difference > 0.1 for the healthy participants [ table 2 ] . oblique rotated pattern matrix from principal axis factor analysis of the mspss - p items in mi patients oblique rotated pattern matrix from principal axis factor analysis of mspss - p items in healthy participants internal consistency as assessed by cronbach 's  was 0.83 for total mspss in the mi patients and 0.92 in the healthy group . cronbach 's  for all subscales was similar in both groups of respondents [ table 3 ] . retest reliability as assessed by pearson 's correlation in the healthy group was 0.74 , 0.78 , and 0.84 for family , friends and significant others , respectively . cronbach 's  for total msps - p and all its subscales in both groups of participants the results of the present study indicated that the persian version of the mspss was a valid and reliable instrument for use among the iranian mi patients and healthy group . the results also showed high internal consistency of the scale and the three subscales in both patients and healthy respondents . in addition , test  retest reliability indicated its excellent stability over a 2-month period . factor analysis confirmed the three - factor structure proposed by zimet et al . , in their original study and supported by all but one ( chinese version ) study . although these results confirmed that the persian version of the mspss showed good psychometric properties in an iranian sample , more cross - loading in healthy participants perhaps revealed that when an individual becomes indisposed : ( a ) perceived social support may change , ( b ) social contact may increase and ( c ) sources of functional support may be more clarified . overall , the persian version of the mspss is a reliable and valid instrument to measure three different sources of perceived social support , family , friends and significant others , among iranian mi patients and healthy samples .
background : social support is a complex and multifaceted construct . 
 thus , it is important that a given social support scale be theoretically grounded and its purview clearly defined . 
 the purpose of this study was to examine the reliability , validity and factor structure of the iranian version of the multidimensional scale of perceived social support ( mspss).methods : the sample study included 176 consecutive myocardial infarction ( mi ) patients admitted to the coronary care unit ( ccu ) ward of nine hospitals in isfahan , iran , and 71 consecutive subjects from the general population . 
 they all filled out the final iranian version of the mspss and also 71 participants filled out the mspss twice over a 2-month period . 
 factor analysis , cronbach 's  coefficient and pearson 's correlation coefficient correlation were used to analyze data.results:factor analysis of the scores of the patient and healthy samples yielded a three - factor structure , including family , friends and significant others . the percentage of variance explained by the three factors in the patient sample and healthy sample were 77.87% and 78.55% , respectively . 
 cronbach 's  coefficient has been found to be 0.84 for the scale and 0.90 , 0.93 and 0.85 , respectively , for the friends , significant others and family subscales from the patient sample , and 0.92 for the scale and 0.89 , 0.92 and 0.87 , respectively , for the friends , significant others and family subscales from the healthy sample . 
 test 
 retest stability over a 2-month period yielded 0.84 for the scale and 0.73 , 0.78 and 0.84 , respectively , for the friends , significant others and family subscales from the healthy sample.conclusions:the findings proved the three - factor structure of the iranian version of the mspss and indicated that the iranian version of the mspss is a reliable , valid and acceptable measure of perceived social support .