Psychoreaction of impoverished undergraduate to social support

Jinhui YE; Qin ZOU

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:

Impoverished undergraduate is a new and special group appearing under the market economy. Strengthening depth and extent is necessary to probe into and study it.

OBJECTIVE:

To investigate the social support of impoverished undergraduates and probe into its effect on mental health of impoverished undergraduates.

DESIGN:

Cross-section survey, clustering stratified sampling

SETTING:

College of Education of Jiangxi Normal University

PARTICIPANTS:

Totally 445 impoverished undergraduates of Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang University, Jiangxi Medical College, East China Jiaotong University and so on of nanchang city were recruited in October 2002. All the participants were volunteers.

METHODS:

Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) was used to evaluate the social support of impoverished undergraduates. The scale is composed of 10 items including objective support, subjective support, and utilization degree of support. Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90) was used to evaluate the mental health status of impoverished undergraduates. SCL-90 has 90 tests, using 1 to 5 degree to score( from not present to severe), including somatization, obsessive compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression,anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, psychoticism (9 factors). During the process of investigation, the testee was tested singly in 2 hours without interference and influence of others. The questionnaires were taken back and the authenticity and validity of the questionnaires was verified.

RESULTS:

All the 500 questionnaires handed out were taken back. Totally 445 pieces of effective questionnaires were involved in the analysis with the effective rate of 89%. ① There was significant difference in objective support and utilization degree of the support between the impoverished undergraduate of either gender (P ＜ 0.01 or P ＜ 0.05); ②There were significant differences in subjective support and utilization degree of support between only-child and non-only-child (P ＜ 0.01 or P ＜ 0.05);③ There was significant difference in utilization degree of the support between impoverished undergraduates from city and impoverished undergraduates from country(P ＜ 0.01 or P ＜ 0.05 );④Obvious correlation existed between mental health and social support of the impoverished undergraduates;⑤Through regression analysis, it showed that social support had significant effect on the mental health of impoverished undergraduate (F= 12.770,P=0.000).

CONCLUSION:

Significant difference existed between different genders,only-child or non-only-child, impoverished undergraduates coming from urban area or rural area. Social support has significant effect on the mental health of impoverished undergraduates.