| Nowadays, there is not a uniform viewpoint about the notion of social support among various researchers. However, social support can be mainly separated into two kinds, one is objective support, including direct material aid and existence and existence and participation of social network and fellowship. It is the collection of families, friends and social organizations that meet one's social, physical and mental demands. The other one is subjective support, namely, emotional support experienced by individuals. In other words, it is one's emotional experience and satisfaction degree because he's respected, supported and understood in society. Two basic contents and methods of social supports are material support and mental support. Social support is a selective behavior of gratis aid to the weak in society given by a certain social network through a kind of material and mental methods. Researches show that social support is inevitably related to physical and mental health. Favorable social support is good to health, while poor social support is harmful to one's health.In 1946, in the International Mental Health Conference, mental health is considered a state in which a person is mentally compatible with others with regard to physical state, intelligence and emotions, thus enable personal mood develop toward optimal condition. Many researches show that the mental health level of impoverished undergraduates is lower than that of ordinary ones. With the enrollment enlargement and reformation of charge system of universities, more and more impoverished students have been enlisted into the universities. So, it is essential to study the mental health of impoverished undergraduates.In former research, little has been done on mental health level of impoverished undergraduates in view of social support, and there is no intervention measures have been taken to improve the level of impoverished undergraduates from the angle of social support. In this research, practical situation of mental health of impoverished undergraduates, social support and the relationship between them have been investigated. On the basis of investigation result, certain intervention measures have been taken.Consequently, this research provides theoretic guide for the education and mental health of impoverished undergraduates in college.The assessment tools utilized in this research are two questionnaires, the SCL-90 and Social Support Rating Scale, both of which have validity and reliability.This research employs random sampling method and takes 180 impoverished undergraduates and non-impoverished undergraduates among four grade of undergraduates of Shandong Finance Institute as samples (The definition of impoverished undergraduates is those the living cost is not more than 150 RMB per month, according to the regulation made by Educational Committee of Shandong Province and family economical status table provided by Student Department in college.). There were 344 valid copies of scales. It examined mental health levels, social support, and the relationship between them of both impoverished undergraduates and non-impoverished undergraduates. Besides, 150 students were taken out from 168 impoverished undergraduates with the employment of natural experiment. They were grouped into three groups at random: group without social support, group with material support and group with mental support. After nearly one term of intervention, the research examined the mental health levels of group without social support, group with material support and group with mental support. The data were dealt with by Statistics software, SPSS 10.0.Our study reveals that:(1). The mental health level of impoverished undergraduates is obviously lower than that of non-impoverished undergraduates, esp. in the respect of stress, depression, anxiety and hostility.(2). The social support of impoverished undergraduates is lower than non-impoverished undergraduates, esp. in friend support, family support, classmate support and consolation and concern. The mental... |
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