Investigation of social support perceptions and hopelessness levels of refugee women in Turkey

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the perceived social support and hopelessness levels experienced by 416 Syrian refugee women coming to Konya city since 2011 and compare refugee women’s perceived social support and hopelessness levels with the duration of stay in a new country. The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and the Beck Hopelessness Scale were used to collect the data. The mean scores of the scales were determined as 31.9 ± 11.5 and 9.1 ± 4.3, respectively. Refugee women or their husbands/partners with high school or higher education who had a profession and higher family income, those with many children, and those having social security and coming from extended families were found to have lower hopelessness and higher perceived social support levels. As the perceived social support level increased, the hopelessness level experienced by refugee women was observed to decrease. Refugee women having to live in another country for long periods were concluded to have higher hopelessness and lower social support levels due to factors such as lower educational status, unemployment, lack of social security, lower economic status, loneliness, not belonging to a nuclear family, and having no higher living standards.