title: Social support and stressful life events during mid-life.
abstract: Life events have been shown to produce psychological distress in women during mid-life. It has been argued that social relationships may modify the detrimental effects of life events and/or have a direct influence on psychological well-being. This paper examined the influence of eight social relationship variables on 'psychological' and 'somatic' distress in a general population sample of women at mid-life. Several of the social relationship variables were shown to be important. The availability of individuals in whom the subject could confide was of particular importance. It is argued that the results confirm the importance of psychosocial factors in producing psychological distress during mid-life.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008593:Menopause; D008875:Middle Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012944:Social Support