Date of Award

2000

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Counseling

First Advisor

Pamela Nickels

Second Advisor

Anita Sankar

Third Advisor

George Lee Judy

Abstract

Death from suicide results in a troublesome and complex adjustment for the surviving friends and family members. As compared to other forms of bereavement, suicide survivors are likely to experience different grief reactions than people dealing with other types of loss. The survivor of suicide may suffer from social rejection and alienation. In this study, the level of perceived social support of survivors of suicide who attend a support group (n=22 ) was compared to the level of perceived social support in survivors of suicide who do not attend a support group (n=20). Subjects had lost a friend or family member to suicide within the last 3-12 months. Each participant was given the Perceived Social Support - Friend Scale and the Perceived Social Support - Family Scale. It was hypothesized that survivors attending a support group will report a higher level of social support compared to those survivors not attending a support group. The results of the study indicated there was no significant differences in the level of perceived social support between the two groups.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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