The Impact of Received Social Support on Posttraumatic Growth After Disaster: The Importance of Both Support Quantity and Quality

Objective: Few studies have investigated the relationship between received social support (actual help received) and posttraumatic growth (PTG), and these studies focused only on the quantity of support received. This study examined the joint implications of both the quantity and quality of postdisaster received social support for PTG. Method: Data were collected from Lushan earthquake (China, in 2013) survivors at 7 (n = 199) and 31 (n = 161) months after the earthquake. The main effects of quantity and quality of received support, and the interaction between support quantity and support quality, were examined using hierarchical multiple regression analyses controlling for the extent of disaster exposure, postdisaster negative life events, and sociodemographic factors. Results: Neither quantity nor quality of received social support exerted significant main effects on PTG. However, the influence of the amount of received social support on PTG was moderated by the quality of received social support. Among survivors who appraised the postdisaster social support they received as higher in quality, greater amounts of received support were associated with more subsequent PTG. Among those survivors who appraised the postdisaster social support they received as lower in quality, greater quantity of received support was associated with lower levels of reported PTG. Conclusion: This study calls attention to the importance of enhancing the quality of help provided to disaster survivors because simply "more" support is not necessarily better. Clinical Impact Statement This study shows that receiving efficacious social support following potentially traumatic events may promote emergence of psychological benefits and advantageous transformations. Receiving help from others may facilitate posttraumatic growth, but it is its quality that matters the most. Received social support that does not adequately meet survivors' specific needs, that is not delivered skillfully, and/or is not delivered in a timely fashion, could be potentially disadvantageous for the experience of posttraumatic growth. Thus, both informal and formal postdisaster relief efforts and interventions should aim to enhance the quality of social support delivered along with attention to the adequacy of the amount of help offered.