Case studies of help seeking behaviour among Asian single parents in Singapore

Abstract

Abstract Using structured interviews, we examined patterns of help seeking behaviour for Chinese, Malay and Indian single parents living in Singapore, Four sources of social support-Family, Neighbours/Friends, Professionals and Religion-were identified and related to four problem areas-Financial, Practical, Emotional and Information. As expected, support for our sample of Asian single parents was most likely to come from the family, and least likely to come from friends and neighbours. However, there were differences between the three ethnic groups across problem areas in the type of support they were most likely to receive. The generalizability of our results is limited by the small sample size, but a framework for understanding help seeking behaviour of Singaporean Asians is proposed.