Friendship and Mental Health: A Qualitative Study among College Students

Friendships and mental health are carefully intertwined. From a young age, many of us begin
to understand the value of friendship. The aim of the study is to investigate and explore the
important impact on mental health among friends. A qualitative research design was adopted,
and purposive sampling techniques were adopted to collect the sample. A total of ten
participants participated, and the sample size was finalized based on the data saturation. The
participants were graduate students currently enrolled in programs at private universities in
Bengaluru. An in-depth interview guide and a socio-demographic profile were used to collect
the data. A total of seventeen participants participated in the thematic analysis to analyse the
data. More than half (64.7%) of the participants are female, and (35.3%) of the participants are
male gender. More than half (52.9 %) of participants are from urban domiciles, and (76.5%) of
the participants from above the poverty line (APL). The mean age of the participants was 23.1
+ (1.21) years. The study found that a total of six main themes and thirty-two subthemes were
generated. The Positive Impact of Friendship, Negative Impact of Friendship, Positive Mental
Health, Reasons for Breaking a Relationship, Reasons for Continuing a Relationship, and
Stress Busters. This study underscores the multifaceted impact of friendships on mental health,
offering a nuanced understanding of their positive and negative effects. Future research could
explore the long-term impact of friendships on mental health across diverse populations.
Keywords: Friendship, Mental health, College students, Emotional support, Stress
reduction.