The Effects of Social Support on Depressive Symptoms Resulting from Daily Hassles among High School Students

To examine the relationship between stress and perceived social support among high school students, we asked 3, 254 students in Okinawa to respond to questionnaires pertaining to depressive symptoms, daily hassles, and social support. We measured depressive symptomsas stresses by using the Zung Self-rating Depressive Scale (SDS). A junior high school version of the Scale of Expectancy for Social Support (SESS) was used to measure the expectancy of social support. As a result, females showed significantly higher scores on depressive symptoms, and support from mother, siblings and friends than males, while males reported significantly higher scores on support form father and teachers than females. There were no gender differences in daily hassles. Daily hassles and each support resource had significant main effects on depressive symptoms, but no interaction was found between them in both males and females. In other words, social support had direct effects on depressive symptoms, and it was highly probable that the expectancies of social supports reduce the depressive symptoms, regardless of intensity of daily hassles. When the expectancies of other support resources were adjusted, we found that supports only from father and friends reduce depressive symptoms in males, while supports from father, mother, siblings, and friends do in females. These findings demonstrate that daily hassles and social support are independently related to depressive symptoms of high school students, and that depressive symptoms could be reduced directly by the expectancy of social support such as support from father and friends in both males and females, and support from mother and siblings in females only. In conclusion, these findings support the direct effect hypothesis of social support for high school students.