Festin Karin, Thomas Kristin, Ekberg Joakim, Kristenson Margareta
Division of Community Medicine, Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Unit for Health Analysis, Centre for Healthcare Development, Region Östergötland, Linköping, Sweden.
PLoS One. 2017 Aug 23;12(8):e0178929. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0178929. eCollection 2017.
Psychosocial resources may serve as an important link to explain socioeconomic differences in health. Earlier studies have demonstrated that education, income and occupational status cannot be used interchangeably as indicators of a hypothetical latent social dimension. In the same manner, it is important to disentangle the effect of measuring different constructs of psychosocial resources. The aim of this study was therefore to analyse if associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and psychosocial resources differ depending on the measures used. A cross-sectional population-based study of a random sample (n = 1007) of middle-aged individuals (45-69 years old, 50% women) in Sweden was performed using questionnaire and register data. SES was measured as education, occupation, household income and self-rated economy. Psychosocial resources were measured as social integration, social support, mastery, self-esteem, sense of coherence (SOC) and trust. Logistic regression models were applied to analyse the relationships controlling for the effects of possible confounders. The measures of SES were low or moderately correlated to each other as were the measures of psychosocial resources. After controlling for age, sex, country of birth and employment status, household income and self-rated economy were associated with all six psychosocial resources; occupation was associated with three (social integration, self-esteem and trust) and education with two (social integration and self-esteem). Social integration and self-esteem showed a significant and graded relationship with all SES measures; trust was associated with all SES measures except education, whereas SOC and mastery were only associated with household income and self-rated economy. After controlling for other SES measures, no associations with psychosocial resources remained for education or occupation. In conclusion, associations between SES and psychosocial resources did differ depending on the measures used. The findings illustrate the importance of the choice of measure when investigating SES as well as psychosocial resources.
社会心理资源可能是解释健康方面社会经济差异的重要纽带。早期研究表明，教育、收入和职业地位不能作为假设的潜在社会维度的指标相互替代。同样，区分测量不同社会心理资源结构的影响也很重要。因此，本研究的目的是分析社会经济地位（SES）与社会心理资源之间的关联是否因所使用的测量方法而异。我们使用问卷调查和登记数据，对瑞典中年个体（45 - 69岁，50%为女性）的随机样本（n = 1007）进行了一项基于人群的横断面研究。SES通过教育、职业、家庭收入和自我评定的经济状况来衡量。社会心理资源通过社会融合、社会支持、掌控感、自尊、连贯感（SOC）和信任来衡量。应用逻辑回归模型分析关系，并控制可能的混杂因素的影响。SES的各项测量指标之间以及社会心理资源的各项测量指标之间相关性较低或中等。在控制了年龄、性别、出生国家和就业状况后，家庭收入和自我评定的经济状况与所有六种社会心理资源相关；职业与三种资源（社会融合、自尊和信任）相关，教育与两种资源（社会融合和自尊）相关。社会融合和自尊与所有SES测量指标呈现出显著的分级关系；信任与除教育之外的所有SES测量指标相关，而SOC和掌控感仅与家庭收入和自我评定的经济状况相关。在控制了其他SES测量指标后，教育或职业与社会心理资源之间不再存在关联。总之，SES与社会心理资源之间的关联确实因所使用的测量方法而异。这些发现说明了在研究SES以及社会心理资源时测量方法选择的重要性。
