Social constraints among bereaving Turkish adults: Testing the construct and convergent validity and reliability of the Social Constraints Scale (SCS)

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Recent studies revealed the significance of social support on human functioning and well-being, and also the adverse effect of social constraints and lack of support. Especially after negative life events such as loss of a loved one, individuals search for support and when not found, adaptation becomes problematic. Thus, measuring and monitoring the perceptions of social constraints is important as well as the social support. This study aimed to conduct the initial reliability and validity analyses of the Social Constraints Scale (SCS) in a Turkish population. SCS and Two-Track Bereavement Questionnaire (TTBQ) were administered to 323 bereaved individuals (222 females and 101 males) with a mean age of 35.31 ( SD = 14.63). Relational active grieving (RAG) and biopsychosocial functioning subscales of TTBQ were used to test the criterion-related validity of the SCS. Results suggested that SCS had good reliability and validity results, and had significant positive correlations with both RAG and biopsychosocial functioning. Moreover, according to the results, when the bereaved perceive more social constraints, they also have more problems with functioning and maladaptive grieving. Results of the initial construct validity, criterion-related validity and internal consistency tests showed that, the Turkish SCS is a valid and reliable scale.