Measure of perceived social support during adolescence (APIK)

Abstract

Social support has become a subject of great interest in different scientific disciplines, what has generated a great diversity of definitions that have resulted in a high quantity and heterogeneity of measuring instruments. In addition, there are hardly any instruments that differentiate the sources of social support despite it is considered a vital component. The objective of this investigation is the creation and validation of a questionnaire to measure perceived social support (APIK) in Secondary School. 323 students of Secondary Education of a high school of Vitoria-Gasteiz aged between 12 to 18 years old (M=14.41; DT=1.18) participated in the study, being 128 of them boys (40%) and 195 girls (60%). The questionnaires APIK, AFA-R and HBSC were used. The obtained results of the exploratory factor analysis confirm the three-dimensional structure (family, friends and teachers) of the questionnaire, which offers excellent indexes of internal consistency and reliability. In consequence, the new questionnaire manages to resolve the limitation of other measuring instruments that evaluated the sources separately, did not fit with the theoretical model of social support; were too long, etc.