Social Support and Depression among Adolescents in Southwest, Nigeria

This study investigated relationship between social support and depression among adolescents in Southwest Nigeria. It also examined the counselling implications of the association. The descriptive research of the survey type was adopted for the study. The population of the study was all the adolescents, both male (mean=15.68) and female (mean=15.77), in all secondary schools in the southwest of Nigeria. A total of 1650 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 years (mean=15.71) were selected using multistage sampling procedure. A self-designed questionnaire titled “Assessment of Social Support and Depression Scale” (ASSDS) was used to elicit information from respondents. The instrument was validated and the reliability was ensured using test re-test method. The reliability co-efficient was 0.75 at 0.05 level of significance. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive analysis for the general question raised while the hypothesis was tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation at 0.05 level of significance. The result showed that social support is not significantly related to the development of depressive symptoms among adolescents. The counselling implication is that the availability and quality of the social support for the in-school are important as they could impact on their health status and depression. The recognition of this should be acknowledged and school counsellors should act as appropriate to assist the adolescents to become well-adjusted adults. Based on the findings, it was recommended that efforts should not be spared to make the environment conducive for the full development and expression of acceptable human qualities of the adolescents. Keywords: Social Support, Adolescent Depression, In-school Adolescents, Counselling Implication,This article has been published at www.ijarbas.com , Issue:5, Vol.#2, May 2020