Two questionnaires about the perceived level of social support received from family and friends were completed at the follow-up assessment (Procidano and Heller, 1983). Each questionnaire had 20 questions with responses on a 4-level Likert scale ranging from “Generally false” to “Generally true,” with higher scores indicating higher levels of support. Representative questions were “I have a deep sharing relationship with a number of members of my family/friends,” “I rely on my family/friends for emotional support.” Missing data for 93 individuals were imputed at the median score (60 for both family and friend support), and a dummy variable was created to represent individuals with missing data. This variable was not significantly associated with follow-up status, indicating that individuals without questionnaire data were not disproportionately from one category. Binary variables representing above-median scores on family and friend support were used in analyses.
