Association between social support and the severity of positive symptoms in rural community-dwelling patients with schizophrenia during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background This study examined the association between social support and the severity of positive symptoms in rural community-dwelling schizophrenia patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method The cross-sectional study included 665 rural community-dwelling schizophrenia patients investigated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social support was measured using the Social Support Rating Scale, and positive symptoms were assessed using the Positive Scale extracted from the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Multiple linear regression was adopted to examine the association of social support with positive symptoms. Result The scores for total social support, subjective support, objective support and the use of social support were 28.3 ± 5.9, 16.4 ± 5.2, 6.5 ± 1.4 and 5.4 ± 2.8, respectively. Total social support ( β = −0.08, 95%CI: −0.13 to −0.02, P < 0.01) and subjective social support ( β = −0.10, 95%CI: −0.16 to −0.04, P < 0.01) were significantly and negatively associated with the Positive Scale score after adjustment for confounders. Objective social support ( β = 0.11, 95%CI: −0.10 to 0.32, P = 0.31) and the use of social support ( β = −0.03, 95%CI: −0.14 to 0.07, P = 0.53) were not significantly associated with the Positive Scale score. Conclusion The study confirmed the importance of social support, especially subjective support, provided to rural community-dwelling schizophrenia patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. This support should be addressed and strengthened for such patients in emergent events.