Role of Social Support in Combating Psychological Distress among Senior Secondary School Students

Purpose of the study was to investigate the role of social support in combating psychological distress among senior secondary school students. The sample was comprised of 200 (100 male and 100 female) students from senior secondary school of Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh. The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) (Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, & Farley, 1988) was used for measuring social support and PGI Health questionnaire N-1 (Werma, Wig, & Prashad, 1985) was used for measuring psychological distress. t-test and correlation was used for analyzing the data. Result showed that there was significant negative correlation between social support and psychological distress. In gender differences, it was found that male students scored significantly higher on social support in comparison to female students. Further it was also found that female students scored significantly higher on psychological distress in comparison to male students.