ArticleJournal of general internal medicine2020
The Importance of "Being There": a Qualitative Study of What Veterans with Depression Want in Social Support.
Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- A new taxonomy of social support: Clarifying supportive behaviours and measures.Journal of health psychology · 2026Review
- A Social Support Just-in-Time Adaptive Intervention for Individuals With Depressive Symptoms: Feasibility Study With a Microrandomized Trial Design.JMIR mental health · 2025Article
- A scoping review of military and Veteran families within international suicidality and suicide prevention research.Preventive medicine reports · 2023Article
- Associations of Suicide Risk and Community Integration Among Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Capsule Commentary for Teo et al., The Importance of "Being There": a Qualitative Study of What Veterans with Depression Want in Social Support.Journal of general internal medicine · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSocial connectedness exerts strong influences on health, including major depression and suicide. A major component of social connectedness is having individual relationships with close supports, romantic partners, and other trusted members of one's social network.
objectiveThe objective of this study was to understand how individuals' relationships with close supports might be leveraged to improve outcomes for primary care patients with depression and at risk for suicide.
designIn this qualitative study, we used a semi-structured interview guide to probe patient experiences, views, and preferences related to social support.
participantsWe conducted interviews with 30 primary care patients at a Veterans Health Administration (VA) medical center who had symptoms of major depression and a close support. APPROACH: Thematic analysis of qualitative interview data examined close supports' impact on patients. We iteratively developed a codebook, used output from codes to sort data into themes, and selected quotations that exemplified themes for inclusion in this manuscript. KEY
results"Being there" as an important quality of close supports emerged as a key concept. "Being there" was defined in three ways: physical proximity, frequent or responsive contact, or perceived availability. Close supports who were effective at "being there" possessed skills in intuitively sensing the patient's emotional state and communicating indirectly about depression. Three major barriers to involving close supports in depression care were concerns of overburdening the close support, a perception that awareness of the patient's depression would make the close support unnecessarily worried, and a desire and preference among patients to handle depression on their own.
conclusions"Being there" represents a novel, patient-generated way to conceptualize and talk about social support. Suicide prevention initiatives such as population-level communication campaigns might be improved by incorporating language used by patients and addressing attitudinal barriers to allowing help and involvement of close supports.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.