A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY OF CONDITIONS AND PROCESSES OF SUPPORTIVE INTERACTIONS FOR SINGLE MOTHERS.
Contributors: University of California, San Francisco.
Published: 1991
Number of pages: 227
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Sociology, Public and Social Welfare.
Description: The purpose of this study was to explore the process of engaging in socially supportive relationships by single mothers. A secondary purpose was to examine the association between support and well-being as indicated by self-report measures of emotional distress and health perception. Findings are based on qualitative analysis of interview and diary data using strategies of grounded theory, and quantitative analysis of diary data and health measures using correlational and descriptive statistical techniques.

Twenty-one single mothers between the ages of 21 and 47, with at least one child between the ages of 18 months and 10 years, were interviewed using a semi-structured interview focusing upon their descriptions of support and the circumstances associated with supportive interactions. A daily diary of supportive contacts was kept over a four week period following the interview. Emotional distress was assessed at weekly intervals using the Center for Epidemiology Scales-Depression. At completion of the diary, health perception was assessed using the Rand Medical Outcomes Survey-Short Form.

Qualitative findings resulted in a description of the experience of "getting on with life" in the context of single motherhood, and of the role of supportive relationships to this process. The diverse ways of functioning as a single parent were categorized into three groups based upon the women's descriptions of how things were going for them. The three levels of experience that emerged from the data were struggling, keeping going, and managing. There were qualitative differences between the experiences of the mothers within each group among which were those related to the nature and quality of ongoing interpersonal relationships. Particularly salient to the degree of difficulty or ease with which the women were getting on with life was their economic status, their opportunity for improving their current situation, such as level of education or job training, and the nature and quality of relationships that they had available to them. For this sample, women with a preschool-aged child were also more likely to be categorized as struggling. Quantitative analyses of diary data revealed that women categorized as struggling had significantly higher scores indicating greater emotional distress, and perceived themselves as less healthy compared to the women who felt they were managing.

The findings from this study accentuate the need to continue to examine supportive relationships within their broader socioeconomic contexts, and to include assessment of negative or conflictual aspects of relationships as well as their supportive qualities. The relationship of support to health indicators was more fully understood when viewed in the context of ongoing daily conditions, such as lack of respite from caring for young children, ongoing financial strains, and relative social isolation.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-09, Section: B, page: 4668.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO, 1991.

School code: 0034.