Assessment of Counseling Needs and their Correlation with Friendship Patterns among Adolescents

Guidance and counseling needs of adolescents are those needs necessary to resolve their problems which they experience in day-to-day life, help to improve their personal development and encourage individual welfare. Friendship is the warp and woof of the social fabric. It does not merely bind society together but provides essential emotional sustenance, buffering against stress and preserving physical and mental health. To assess the provision status of counseling services and identify and compare the counseling needs and friendship patterns of adolescents in government and private schools among adolescents in private and government schools of Ludhiana city. The study was conducted on 240 adolescents (120 government and 120 private). Psychological Counseling Needs Scale by Chouhan and Arora (2009) was used to assess the counseling needs. Dimensions of Friendship Scale by Chandna and Chadha (1986) was used to assess the friendship patterns among adolescents. A self-structured questionnaire was used to assess the provision status of guidance and counseling services to adolescents. The results revealed that there was inadequacy of counselor in the government schools. Government school adolescents significantly showed high requirement for psychological counseling needs as compared to private school adolescents. Irrespective of the gender and type of school, results of correlation analysis revealed that the adolescents who have better friendships are in lesser need of counseling services.