Relationship between Degree of Life Stress, Social Support and Depression in Koreans Living in the Philippines

필리핀 거주 한국인의 생활스트레스, 사회적 지지 및 우울의 관계

Purpose: This study was done to examine the relationship between life stress and depression, and the effect of social support of 100 Koreans living in the Phillippines. Theoretically social support is considered to mediate the relationship between lift stress and depression. Method: Data were collected from April 1 to May 30, 2002 and analysed using SAS. The first, two hypotheses were tested using Gamma, a measure of association for ordinal variables. Partial gamma was used to test the third hypothesis. Patterns of elaboration described by Babbie(1986) were selected to interpret the relationship of the three variables in the analysis. Results: 1) There was a positive relationship between life stress and depression(Gamma=.45, p=.017), and a inverse relationship between social support and depression(Gamma=-.561, p=.002). Thus the first, two hypotheses were supported. 2) When social support was controlled, the relationship between life stress and depression increased under the condition of low social support but with high social support, the relationship decreased. Conclusion: It can be interpreted that life stress is positively related to depression under the condition of low social support, however this relationship may be reversed with high social support.