The Effect of Friendship on Loneliness in Post-Pandemic Overseas Students

Loneliness is a common problem among overseas students. Loneliness can occur due to the low level of the intimacy of friendship. Thus, this study aimed to determine the effect of friendship on the loneliness of respondents. The research used comparative causal type quantitative methods. The study involved 385 respondents who were overseas students at Malang State University class of 2020 and 2021 who started friendships online and continued offline. They were selected using a purposive sampling technique. The study used the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale Version 3 (UCLA LS) scale, which was adapted into Indonesian by Putri (2019) and modified by researchers, had 14 items with a reliability of 0.884, and the Intimacy of Friendship Scale by Rizal’s (2020) and modified by researchers, had 41 items with a reliability of 0.942. Data analysis in this study used simple regression analysis. The results showed that intimacy of friendship contributed 32.7% to loneliness with a negative influence (ρ = 0.000). Keywords: Intimacy of friendship; Loneliness; Overseas students; Post-pandemi