Abstract: 5·12 Sichuan earthquake is a serious natural disaster which has brought about a large number of injuries and deaths, and severe damage to property. Since it is devastating, unpredictable and uncontrollable, victims are likely to develop varying levels of psychological trauma. Majority of studies have shown that perceived social support have an important impact on buffering stress and protecting people from developing symptoms of psychological distress. This research is aimed to develop a perceived social support scale for earthquake survivors (PSSS-ES) and to explore what kind of support is actually needed by victims. About one month after Sichuan earthquake, PSSS-ES and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were given to 304 earthquake survivors in Deyang, Mianzhu and Shifang.The PSSS-ES was composed of 12 items in three subscales including instrumental support, informational support and emotional support. Factor loading of items in three subscales revealed by exploratory factor analysis respectively rang from 0.499 to 0.855, 0.704 to 0.854, 0.660 to 0.845, and 58.979% of the total variance could be explained. Cronbach’s α for PSSS-ES and its subscales were 0.852, 0.629, 0.722 and 0.843, respectively. The group which perceived low social support experienced higher level of depression than that perceived high social support, and the difference was significant. The correlation coefficient between PSSS-ES and BDI was -0.331, and the correlation coefficients among the three subscales rang from 0.406 to 0.506, with the correlation between informational support and BDI being the most significant

Key words: social support, instrumental support, informational support, emotional support, depression