Abstract

The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support was designed to assess perceived social support according to three sources: family, friends and other significant ones. The main objective of this research was to determine the psychometric properties of this questionnaire through its application to 1975 students in the first and second year of their careers at Universities in Southern Chile (55.031% women), aged between 17 and 25 years-old (M=19.293; SD=1.349). The results indicated adequate adjustment of the second order model considering three dimensions of support (family, friends and other significant ones). The internal consistency coefficients for the dimensions of the scale were, alpha=.903 (Family), alpha=.928 (Friends) and alpha=.864 (other significant ones). It is concluded that the questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument to evaluate this construct in chilean university students and it also has equivalence of measure across gender.