Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, 2017; 4: 66–72 DOI: 10.12740/APP/76875 Social support for earthquake victims in East Azerbaijan, Iran Tayebeh Rakhshani, Samira Taravatmanesh, Kazem Khorramdel, Mohammadreza Ebrahimi Summary Aims: One important factor in disaster relief is to maintain mental health in the victims. Therefore, this study was designed and conducted with the aim of investigating social support available to earthquake victims in East Azerbaijan, a province of Iran. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study. The sample included earthquake vic- tims in the city of Ahar and its neighboring villages in East Azerbaijan Province. A sample size of 300 was es- timated based on a Krejcie–Morgan table. Data collection tools were a sociodemographic questionnaire and the MOS Social Support Survey (social support scale). An independent t-test, ANOVA and Pearson correla- tion coefficient statistical tests were used for data analysis. Results: Among the 300 participants, 115 earthquake victims (38.3%) were female and 185 (61.7%) were male. Most of the participants evaluated total social support as average (51.3%) and low (41.3%). The total and tangible social support had a significant relationship with the variables of gender, marital status, educa- tion and occupation (p ≤ 0.05). Discussion: The study showed that the majority of earthquake victims evaluated social support available to them after the earthquake as close to average. Regarding the tangible social support subscale, most partic- ipants reported it was average. This was also true about emotional support; most participants stated that in- formational support was low. Conclusion: Our findings showed that the majority of earthquake victims described the social support for earthquake victims as average to low. social support post-earthquake, earthquake victims, East Azerbaijan INTRODUCTION Iran is located in the East Mediterranean region [1]. Due to being situated on the Alpine-Him- alayan orogenic belt, the country is known as being vulnerable to earthquakes [2]. From 1900 to 2012, 193 natural and artificial disasters that occurred in this country resulted in the deaths of 155,878 and 4955 people, respectively [1]. The Rudbar earthquake (1990), the Bam earth- Tayebeh Rakhshani 1 , Samira Taravatmanesh 2 , Kazem Khor- ramdel 3 , Mohammadreza Ebrahimi 4 : 1 Nutrition Research Center, Department of Public Health, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran; 2 Department of Public Health, Shiraz University of Me- dical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran; 3 Department of Psychology, Fatemiyeh Shiraz, Non-Proft High Education Institute, Shiraz, Iran; 4 Emergency Medicine Department, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shi- raz, Iran Correspondence address: healthacademic2014@gmail.com