SOCIAL NETWORKS IN PATIENTS SUFFERING FROM AFFECTIVE DISORDERS

According to A.Axer's definition, a social network is a certain number of people with whom a person - a central individual of a network - remains in contact. A person creates his own network from family members (husband/wife, children, parents, other relatives) and unrelated people (co-workers, neighbours, friends). Studies on the role of social support in the course of affective disorders focus on different hypotheses: whether a small amount of social support increases the risk of depression, if suffering from an episode of depression in the past decreases the amount of social support received, or if there is any genetic factor which increases the risk of both appearance of a major depression episode and having a social network providing little support. The character of these relationships has not been unequivocally explained so far. It may be helpful to make use of the information about a patient's social network when planning their treatment. The information enables to identify people who provide a patient with the largest amount of support and what is more to recognize deficiencies so as to make attempts to reorganize or reconstruct a network.