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58569

Social Support and Psychological Distress among Adolescents in Foster Care

Article

Last updated: 24 Dec 2024

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Abstract

There are 1.7 million orphans in Egypt, and the Egyptian foster care sector is largely a non-governmental relying on private support with minimal government supervision. The transition from living at home to living in foster care is difficult for anyone at this age. Psychological distress is one of the health problems faced by foster youth. Social agencies have no more power than the legal rights to offer support to these youths. Therefore, the aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between psychological distresses and social support provided to the adolescents in foster care. Subjects and methods: Three tools were utilized to measure the variables of the study: Socio- demographic data, Depression, Anxiety, Stress scale (DASS 42) and Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire (NSSQ). Results revealed that, 58% of subjects were males and more than half of the foster care adolescents came from rural area, poverty and divorce were the major reasons for entering foster care. Concerning level of psychological distress among the foster care adolescents, 77% of adolescents had mild to moderate stress, 60% had mild to moderate depression while more than half of them (54%) suffered from severe to extreme anxiety. As regard social support; more than half of foster care adolescents (52%) received support from their friends and males were more socially supported than females. Conclusion: Broken families (divorces) and poverty were the major reasons for placing children in foster care. Most of foster care adolescents had various levels of psychological distress especially depression and anxiety. Friends represented the main social support source for the foster care adolescents. Adolescents who had not anxiety had higher mean scores of social support than others. There is no a statistically significant differences between social support and psychological distress. Recommendations; Focusing on alternative families from relatives and neighbors, especially to orphans, those who came from broken families, or suffer from some circumstances of illness or economic hardship than foster care.

DOI

10.21608/asnj.2014.58569

Keywords

Adolescents• Foster care• Social support •Psychological Distress

Authors

First Name

Sherifa

Last Name

Mohamed

MiddleName

Rabie

Affiliation

Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing – El Minia University

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Fadia

Last Name

Mosallem

MiddleName

Abd-El Hamed

Affiliation

Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine- El-Minia University.

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Naglaa

Last Name

Mohamed

MiddleName

Abd El Megied

Affiliation

Psychiatric Nursing, Faculty of Nursing- Assiut University.

Email

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City

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Orcid

-

First Name

& Amany

Last Name

Mohamed.

MiddleName

Anter

Affiliation

Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, El-Minia University.

Email

-

City

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Orcid

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Volume

2

Article Issue

3

Related Issue

8916

Issue Date

2014-06-01

Receive Date

2019-11-13

Publish Date

2014-06-01

Page Start

79

Page End

89

Print ISSN

2314-8845

Online ISSN

2682-3799

Link

https://asnj.journals.ekb.eg/article_58569.html

Detail API

https://asnj.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=58569

Order

8

Type

Original Article

Type Code

1,040

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Assiut Scientific Nursing Journal

Publication Link

https://asnj.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Social Support and Psychological Distress among Adolescents in Foster Care

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023