International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and Human Resilience, Vol. 18, No.4, pp. 1, ISSN 1522-4821 IJEMHHR • Vol. 18, No. 4 • 2016 1 INTRODUCTION The purpose of study was to explore the relationship between social support and stress among married women school teachers. Social relationships are very important and crucial aspects of life, that play an important role in our social and psychological functioning across the lifespan. In other words, the requirement of social support, it’s worth and amount is essential for every individual and its consistency associated to the experience of stress. Social support is so important for human beings in order to lead healthy life. Without social support we cannot live a socially and psychologically healthy life. That’s why it is very important to investigate the relationship between social support and stress among married women school teachers because fully functioning teachers are sole of healthy society. As social support is a system that may composed of family, friends, neighbors and community members that psychologically, physically and fnancially facilitate an individual or a group of individuals by providing help and inspiration to a person with bodily or psychological defciencies in a way that they can better cope (“Medical dictionary”, 2009). There are different sources of social support including family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, different program leaders (Israel & Schurman, 1990). “Social support refers to various types of aid and succor provided by members of one’s social networks” (Weiten, 2001). According to Sarson and Sarson (2005), Social support is not only a need in the time of tension and pressure but it is an important requirement for a normal life. All those people who did not receive a suffcient quantity of social support may face a lot of problem in social relationships and other daily life functioning. So an enough quantity and suffciency of social support accessible to a person plays a central role in both helplessness and coping with stress. Susceptibility to physical and psychological collapse broadens as social support reduces. After explaining the concept of social support the present study aims to elaborate the concept of stress. Stress is a word that broadly used in health psychology. According to Kagan and Segal (1992), all the factors that aggravate stress are called stressors. These trials are existence emergencies such as accidents, or divorce, changes in activities such as starting a new job, different types of catastrophes like earth quakes and fres and other daily life irritations which produce pressure and anxiety. Teaching can also be a basis of stress in the existence of many other issues such as unavailability of social support, fnancial troubles and existence of bodily ailment. Relationship between stress and social support has also been described by many theorists. Wills (1998) identifed that social support may control stress in a lot of ways. People who are facing stress, their community set-up may facilitate them in getting better activities such as doing exercise and consulting with a doctor when they are not feeling well (as cited in Brannon & Feist, 2007). So the present study showed that an adequate level of social support is very important to encourage different behaviors which can reduce the magnitude of stress. Finding of study will be very important for policy makers in order to reduce level of stress and enhance social support of teachers and it is socially signifcant and can be an important edition in literature as it indicates the infuence of social support on the stress especially from the perspective of married female school teachers. It was important to conduct research on social support and stress of married female’s school teachers because married working females have more responsibilities than unmarried and non-working females. However, results of the study will be very signifcant to give awareness about how social support is important and helpful for family, friends, and coworkers to decrease the level of stress of married female teachers and perception of available support will be helpful for married female school teachers to perceive possible stressors less frightening. In this way this research helps to solve particular social problem because fully functioning teachers are very important part of the society and young generation. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Different researches refected that over the years social support has been negatively correlated with stress. For instance, a research conducted by Park et al. (2013) on social support and stress among *Correspondence regarding this article should be directed to: mueen.abid.uog@gmail.com A Study on Social Support and Stress among Married Women School Teachers Maryam Riaz, Mueen Abid*, Naeem Ullah, Sidra Khalid University of Gujrat, Gujrat, Pakistan ABSTRACT: The modern world, which is said to be a world of achievements, is also a world of stress. The current study aimed to measure the level of social support and stress among married women school teachers and to measure impact of family system on social support among married women school teachers in Gujrat city Pakistan. In order to collect data Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet & Farley, 1988) and Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, 1983) were used on a sample of 110 married women school teachers by using convenient sampling technique. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Spearman’s rho correlation and Chi-Square) were used for analysis of data. Results of the study indicated that the level of social support was high among married women school teachers, while the level of perceived stress was low. Moreover, there was highly negative correlation between social support and the level of stress among married women school teachers (r = -.582***). Most of the respondents were belonged to joint family system and it was identifed that there was a positive association between family system and social support of working women. All the women who belonged to joint family system had high level of social support. Keywords: Social support, stress, convenient sampling technique