Background. The experience of being victimized in the past could have long term impacts to one’s life, including social alienation and loneliness. People with social alienation and loneliness often have difficulties in initiating and maintaining social relationships, which in turn would make the alienation and loneliness condition get worse. If left untreated, this condition could lead to bigger impacts, such as depression, substance abuse, vandalism, and health issues. Hence, it is needed to design an intervention to reduce the symptoms of social alienation and loneliness among the victims. Several literatures argued that support group was one kind of potential intervention to reduce those symptoms, since support group could help broaden the social networks among them. This study aimed to design and test the effectiveness of support group intervention program to reduce the symptoms of social alienation and loneliness among college students who have been victimized in their past. This was a short program which consisted of three sessions. During the program, participants were facilitated to talk about their negative social experience and difficulties in social relationships. They also discussed and learned several useful tips and skills to improve their interpersonal relationship, especially communication skill. Some methods were featured in this program, such as roleplay, group interview, snowball feedback, and home assignments.

Methods. Eight college students aged 18 to 22 were selected to join this program. All of them experienced victimization in the past, including verbal, physical, and cyber bullying, as well as estrangement from friends and families. They also reported difficulties in interpersonal relationships because of the victimization. Six participants managed to join all sessions, while two participants could not. This study was a pre-post test within-group design. To measure the degree of social alienation and loneliness from the participants, we used Jessor and Jessor Social Alienation Scale and De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale. Both scales were measured prior to the first session and right after the last session. The scores from pre- and post-test were compared using descriptive statistics to evaluate the effectiveness of this program. Qualitative evaluations from all participants were also collected to describe the change among them after joining this program.

Results. The pre- and post-test measurements revealed that all participants showed reduced score on social alienation scale from pre- to post-test. On the loneliness scale, one participant showed increase score on the post-test, while the rest of participants showed decrease loneliness score from pre- to post-test. This could be due to some personal characteristics of the concerned participant. Based on qualitative evaluations, all participants reported positive change on their social relationship and the way they perceived themselves after joining this program.

Conclusions. Support group intervention is useful to decrease the symptoms of social alienation and loneliness among people with victimization experience.

Added-Values. This study contributed to the development of useful intervention to reduce social alienation and loneliness among people with victimization experience. The short-term and compact nature of this program could be beneficial to several populations, especially the one who do not have a lot of time to participate in long intervention program.

Keywords: support group; social alienation; loneliness; victimization; college students

Word count: 508 words