Assessment of perceived loneliness among university students of Ludhiana (Punjab)

Pages: 245-248
Rajinder Kaur, Vandana Kanwar, and Seema Sharma (Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab)

Today, joint families have been broken down to either nuclear families or extended families. Lack of elder members in the family make young parents more anxious, less patient, more work- oriented and have less interpersonal relationships. The research paper is intended to explore the perceived loneliness among undergraduate students. The total sample comprised of 400 college undergraduate students. Perceived Loneliness Scale (L-Scale) standardized scale was used to determine the degree and extent of loneliness perceived by the students. Results indicated that though the majority of the students perceived an average level of loneliness, but the trend was towards higher side in all colleges except in College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology as well as in all the years of their degree programme. Inter-college differences in mean scores of COAE and T significantly differ from the mean scores of all other colleges. Respondents of COHSc perceived the loneliness at higher level whereas respondents of COAE & T perceived less loneliness. Gender differences in perceiving loneliness showed that females perceived more loneliness as compared to the males.