Is the relationship between support

Is the relationship between support and self-management different for general supportas compared to illness- or regimen-specific support? As Table 3 illustrates, an approximatelyequivalent number of tests involved specific as opposed to general support, and acomparison of results for the two types of support is inconclusive. Illness- or regimenspecificsupport had a positive relationship with self-management in 7 of 12 instances,whereas general support showed a positive relationship in 8 of 13 instances. When thesedifferent levels of support were examined within the same study, there is evidence to suggestthat specific support has a stronger relationship to self-management behaviors thanmore general support. For example, in one case, general support was not predictive ofself-care at all, but diabetes-specific support was predictive of self-care among men.31Glasgow and Toobert found that regimen-specific support was a stronger predictorof adherence than was a summary measure of overall support.32 This finding wastrue for a number of different self-care behaviors examined. In a third study, althoughneither regimen-specific nor general supportwas significantly predictive of epilepsy self-