CONFOUNDATION EFFECTS IN SOCIAL-SCIENCES AND THEIR CONTROL APPLIED TOTHE CONSTRUCTS PERSONALITY, SOCIAL SUPPORT AND PSYCHIC DISORDERS

Social scientific investigations on coping with illness, on the releva nce of life events or social support for psychic disorders are concern ed with a variety of constructs with interdependent structures. Hypoth eses in interrelationships are set up and tested on the construct leve l. A problem quite often overlooked here is that almost all constructs overlap to a considerable extent both with regard to their content as well as operationally, i.e. they are confounded. Interrelations of co nstructs which are strongly content-related or operationally confounde d are thus in danger of demonstrating artificial results. Data from an extensive epidemiological research project on the incidence and preva lence of psychic disorders in the general population are used applying structural equation models for latent variables to demonstrate confou ndation effects for the constructs personality, social support and sta te of health. Appropriate control methods are described. The results s how that partner support maintains a strong influence on the psychic a nd physical state of health even confoundation of content has been exc luded. Application of this method of content confoundation control is discussed with regard to research on coping life event research etc.