To study the prevalence of social support (SS) and it's relation with other psychosocial factors in female population of 25–64 years in Russia.

Under the third screening of the WHO’MONICA-psychosocial’ program random representative sample of women aged 25–64 years (n=870) were surveyed in Novosibirsk in 1994. SS were measured by Berkman-Sym test (indices of close contacts (ICC) and social network (SNI)). SPSS 11.5 was used for statistical evaluation (X2).

The prevalence of low levels of ICC and SNI in women aged 25-64 was 57.1% and 77.7%, respectively. More than 80% of women with low ICC (p<0.001) and SNI had high level of personal anxiety. Women with low ICC and SNI more likely had major depression (17.4% and 19.4%, respectively; p for all <0.01). It's necessary to notice women with high SS have no major depression. Rates of high vital exhaustion level increased in 3-times with decline of SS grade (p<0.05). There were tendencies of higher prevalence of hostility and sleep disorders (only for low ICC) in women with low SS. There was significant reduction in the work capacity within the last year in women with low SNI (p<0.05). But there was increasing of conflicts in family up to 67.9% with growth of ICC levels (p<0.05).

The prevalence of low ICC and SNI in female population 25–64 years in Russia is large. Women with low SS more likely have high anxiety, major depression, high hostility and vital exhaustion, poor sleep and high job stress.