Personal social networks and health: conceptual and clinical implications of their reciprocal impact.
Social networks affect positively or negatively a person's health, and a person's health affects, in turn, the network's availability. This article discusses this double dynamic, recommends the routine exploration of patients' social networks, and offers a mapping tool that allows detection of strengths and weaknesses of those processes so as to facilitate interventions that improve the social support's health-enhancing effect.
Sluzki
Carlos E
CE
Department of Global and Community Health and Human services, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. csluzki@gmu.edu
D003266:Continuity of Patient Care; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008016:Life Change Events; D012944:Social Support