Impactful Social Media on Family Living with Mentally Disordered Members in Rural Areas

Objective: This study explores the impact of social media on family who live with mentally disordered members in rural areas of Ponorogo, East Java Province. Various efforts have been made to determine whether or not social media can help families in rural areas deal with serious stress because of living with their mentally disordered members. Method: This study involves 160 members with mental disorder and their family. Stress is measured based on Lazarus and Folkman theory. Data are analyzed using the Sperman test with SPSS software. Results: Using Beck criteria, it was found that 60% (N = 160) of families feel stressed. Interestingly, there was a significance difference of stress experienced by the social media users and non-social media users (p value= 0.002). There are 31.3% of social media users who are less stressed while 68.7% non-social media users felt more stressed. Conclusion: This study verifies the stress experienced by familes who live with mentally disordered members. It can be concluded that the families who use social media are less stressed even though they live with mentally disordered members. It means social media can prevent stress. In addition, it is recommended that counseling and psychological training should be designed by considering participants’ gender and level of education.