Background & Aim: Physical and psychoSOCIAL problems along with the changes in life style, put hemodialysis patients under pressure. It seems that SOCIAL SUPPORT decreases psychological stresses and improves quality of life. This study aimed to describe hemodialysis patients' perceptions on their SOCIAL SUPPORTs and related factors.Methods & Materials: This descriptive-correlational study is a part of a larger study. All patients (n=202) referred to the hemodialysis units of Iran University of Medical Sciences were recruited to the study during a four-month period. Data were collected using "Personal Resources Questionnaire" (PRQ 85-PART 2) and analyzed using SPSS v.14.Results: Findings revealed that the most patients (64.9%) had PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT at high levels. There were significant relationships between SOCIAL SUPPORT with economic status, gender and marital status (P<0.05). Findings also indicated that the statements of "I enjoy doing little extra things that make another person's life more pleasant" and, "I belong to a group in which I feel important" had the highest and lowest scores respectively.Conclusion: Regarding the variety of perceptions in hemodialysis patients on SOCIAL SUPPORT and its related factors, nurses can prevent SOCIAL isolation of these patients through identification of high risk groups and can also reduce their stresses and help them to improve their quality of life by providing adequate SUPPORTive interventions.

Background and Aim: The treatment of renal failure through dialysis imposes considerable stress on patient. The need for long-term medical treatment of renal failure may place substantial demands and limitations on patient’s daily function and lifestyles. PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT may facilitate coping with illness and its complications. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to determine PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT in hemodialysis patients.Material and Method: This was a descriptive-correlational and cross-sectional study in which 202 hemodialysis patients under treatment in teaching center of Iran University of Medical Sciences was recruited. The subjects were selected by census sampling method. The data were collected using "Personal Resource Questionnaire (PRQ 85-PART 2) and were analyzed by SPSS, version 14.Results: Findings confirm that overall patients had a high degree of PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT. Statisticall significant relationship was found between PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT and gender, material status, physical function, economic status, and educational level, but, there was no statistical significant correlation between PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT and other variable.Conclusion: Association between PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT and some demographic variables indicates the need for nurses to consider SUPPORT resources of these patients. The study results demonstrated relationship between some demographic variable and PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT and a large amount of variances remained unexpected, so further research are needed about the subject.

Psychological disorders are universally common problems. SOCIAL SUPPORT contributes much to the health of individuals. Focusing upon SOCIAL SUPPORT and upon vicissitudes of life can help prevent the depression-induced disorders. The present paper investigated the relationship between PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT, depression and PERCEIVED stress in university students. The descriptive-analytical study was carried out on 390 students living in Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sceince campus, whom were selected based on a simple random selection method. The related questionnaires of multidimensional scales of PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT, Beck’s depression, and PERCEIVED stress then were distributed during midterm among students to collect the necessary data. Data was fed into SPSS 16 and analysed using ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient, independent t-test, Chi-square, and Fisher exact test.Our results indicated that 49.7 per cent of students suffered from specific degrees of depression. 30.5 per cent of students had given educational progress and employment as sources of stress in living in the campus. The PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT scores were 28.32±9.56, depression, 12.10±9.02, and for PERCEIVED stress was 26.84±8.27. A significant relationship was shown to be between PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT, depression, and PERCEIVED stress (p<0.001) The conclusion made in the paper is that considering depression and stress is crucial to the health of the students. Also, forming workgroups to increase SOCIAL SUPPORT for students can help alleviates depression and stress in university students.

Background: Patients undergoing bariatric surgery may need much more psychological and SOCIAL SUPPORT from their family and friends to maintain weight loss, recover, and cope with SOCIAL appearance anxiety. This study determines the relationship between PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT (PSS) and SOCIAL appearance anxiety (SAA) after bariatric surgery. Methods: This descriptive, correlational study was conducted between October and December 2022 in Turkey through voluntary response sampling technique. A total of 121 bariatric surgery patients generated the sample. The multidimensional scale of PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT (MSPSS) and the SOCIAL appearance anxiety scale (SAAS) were used for data collection. Descriptive statistics, Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests were performed to analyze the data. Statistical Package for the SOCIAL sciences for Windows version 21.0. was used for data analysis. A p value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The average total score of PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT of the patients was 60.28±19.62 and the mean scores of family, friends, and significant others regarding the source of the SUPPORT were 24.88±7.19, 19.70±7.06 and 18.69±8.69, respectively. The average total score of SOCIAL appearance anxiety was 38.53±16.95. There was a statistically non-significant negative correlation between total scores of PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT and SOCIAL appearance anxiety (ρ: -0.102 P: 0.27). The SOCIAL appearance anxiety total score differed according to gender, preoperative, and postoperative body mass index (P<0.05).  Conclusion: The results showed that PSS does not affect SAA after bariatric surgery. Multicenter studies with more homogeneous samples in terms of time elapsed after bariatric surgery are recommended.