Social Support, Religiosity as Predictors of Mental Wellbeing of the Youths in Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State
Chapter One
Objective of the Study
The objective of this study is mainly to examine p Social support, religiosity as predictors of mental wellbeing of the youths.
Specific Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the study will be:
- To determine the prevalence of mental health problems among youths in Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers state
- To identify social factors that predict mental wellbeing of youth students of Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers state
- To examine how these social factors affect the mental health of the students.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Conceptual review
CONCEPT OF HEALTH
The concept of health and the WHO definition Etymologically the English word ‘health’ literally means wholeness, being whole, complete, sound or well. To ‘heal’ literally means to make whole. Both words go back to the old English word ‘hal’ and the old German word ‘Heil’. The ancient Greek word for health is euexia, which means to be in a vital and resilient state. Hygiea is the name of the goddess of health, the daughter of Asclepios, who represents a good way of living. The Greek, English and German words for health are etymologically unrelated to the words illness and disease. Whereas the English word wholeness is more of a static concept, the Greek words for health emphasize good functioning and the activity of the whole body.
Health is a universal phenomenon and operates at different dimensions, hence its ambiguity. There have been numerous definitions proffered for health signifying that there is no strait jacket definition which completely captures the nature of the concept. However, one of the most frequently cited definition is the World Health Organization’s agreed definition in 1948.
Emiola (2008) quoting Nieman (2003) noted that the three dimensions of health are tightly interdependent and that quality of life demands that each receives balanced attention. Health is therefore, a resource for life that enables people to lead individual, social and productive lives (Ofili, 2013).
CONCEPTS OF MENTAL HEALTH
Mental health is an individual and personal matter. It involves a living human organism or, more precisely, the condition of an individual human mind. A social environment or culture may be conducive either to sickness or health, but the quality produced is characteristic only of a person; therefore, it is improper to speak of a “sick society” or a “sick community.” Within the different definitions of mental health, it is assumed that the concept is wider than the absence of mental disorders. It is the ability to manage its own life and the emotions within a wide range of variations without losing the value of what is real and precious. In speaking of a person’s mental health, it is advisable to distinguish between attributes and actions. The individual may be classified as more or less healthy in a long-term view of his behaviour or, in other words, according to his enduring attributes. Or, his actions may be regarded as more or less healthy–that is, appropriate–from the viewpoint of single, immediate, short-term situation. Standards of mentally healthy, or normal, behaviour vary with the time, place, culture, and expectations of the social group. In short, different peoples have different standards. Mental health is one of many human values; it should not be regarded as the ultimate good in itself. No completely acceptable, all-inclusive concept exists for physical health or physical illness, and, likewise, none exists for mental health or mental illness. A national program against mental illness and for mental health does not depend on acceptance of a single definition and need not await it. Many scientific investigators have thought about the psychological content of positive mental health. A review of their contributions reveals six major approaches to the subject: a. Attitudes of the individual toward himself; b. Degree to which person realizes his potentialities through action; c. Unification of function in the individual’s personality; d. Individual’s degree of independence of social influences; e. How the individual sees the world around him; and f. Ability to take life as it comes and master it. One value in American culture compatible with most approaches to a definition of positive mental health appears to be this: An individual should be able to stand on his own two feet without making undue demands or impositions on others. The need for more intensive scientific research in mental health is underscored.
Udoh and Ajala (1991), quoting the renowned psychologist, Sigmund Freud, defined mental health as the ability to work and love. The utter simplicity of this definition has rendered it myopic in our complex present day. Man is in this present day plagued continually various mental illness predictor than ever before. Such arise from daunting expectations, environmental disturbances such as technologies and automobiles, and inherent factors masked by the individual personal make-up. Several attempts by present day scholars have been made but it must be mentioned that there are just few definitions which have been universally accepted.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The descriptive survey research design was used for this study. This is considered appropriate because, it enables a researcher to carefully describe, interpret and explain factual and detailed information about the variables of interest (Kerlinger, 2000). This design is selected as the most suitable since the study is intended to examine and report the relationship among the variables of interest how they naturally occur without manipulation.
As a structure, it provides a specific outline, scheme, and paradigm of operation of the variables and as a strategy, and it provides more specifically, the methods to be used in gathering and analyzing data. In other words, it indicates how the research objectives will be accomplished and how the problems encountered in the research will be tackled (Bamigboye, Lucas, Agbeja, Adewale, Ogunleye and Fawole 2006).
Research Population
Four hundred and fifty students of Obio-Akpor Local Government Area participated in this study.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSES AND RESULTS
Introduction
This study was designed to examine psycho-social predictors of mental health status of youths in Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers state. This chapter of the study focuses on the presentation of the result of the study based on analysis of data generated and the discussions of these findings. The chapter is presented in four sections beginning with the demographic characteristics of the respondents, the answering of research questions, test of hypotheses and concluded with the discussions of findings.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Conclusion
Depression is a conventional, frequent psychiatric problem youths face and is linked with functional state of being diminished, suicide, and psychiatric medical condition, and also future academic failure, marital difficulties and failure, unemployment, substance abuse, and legal problems, etc. Depression is a great harm to human health and a threat to the society that is why research has concentrated on pointing out risk factors for this threat. A perspective is that deficiencies in social support maximize the risk for depression. Moreover, the concept or idea that a person is accepted and valued in one’s interpersonal environment encourages self- esteem, confidence, and efficacy, which surround depression. The stress-buffering model stresses that social support mollifies the link between stressful life events and depression. Deficiencies in perceived support have foreseen future rise and growth in depressive symptoms among youths. Research works that evaluated both parental support and peer support discovered that only the former showed expected effects.
It is also concluded that psychological factors of self-esteem and self-efficacy predict mental health status just as academic factors and relationship factors. This therefore provides empirical basis for a responsive school health educational strategies to address these factors found to predict mental health status of respondents.
The study hereby concluded that social support and religiosity are crucial factors and strong predictors of mental wellbeing among youths in Rivers State.
Recommendations
Based on the findings of the study, the following policy recommendations are suggested:
- Religious leaders should encourage the youth more, and make them realise why they shouldn’t be depressed according to the word of God.
- Government should encourage the youth by creating the necessary facilities and programmes to minimize the rate of depression among the youths.
- Research efforts should focus in-depth on this issue of youth depression to find out the variables that are likely to predict depression among the
- Researchers on youth depression should not fail to make their findings open to the public through media or journals, as this will help to educate the public more on the consequences of depression among the youths.
- The present research should be replicated, keeping its limitations in view to test accuracy of the findings or the research can be conducted in other settings to compare results gotten from other environments with the present study
- The Youth Friendly Centre must be upgraded and repackaged to provide sound emotional health development platform for youths in the University
- The community radio could be put into active use in helping youths build resilience against stressors in the university community that could predispose them to poor mental health status
- The alarming level of suicidal ideation recorded in this study sounds the death knell for the enormity of poor mental health status of youths. There is therefore the need to adopt psychological therapies to build students resilience and internal conflict resolution skills.
- Strengthening the mental health department currently created at the Jaja Clinic and creating awareness of its existence and essence must be ensured to help address mental health issues among youths and other members of Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers state community. The community radio can be effectively put into good use for this purpose.
REFERENCES
- Agbanusi, E.C., Ibeagba, E.J., and Emeahara, G.O. 2008. Globalization and Health: Cardiovascular fitness perspective IJERD, 3(1), 73-79
- AIHW (2006). Australia’s health 2006. Technical report, Cat no AUS73. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
- AIHW (2007). Young australians: their health and wellbeing 2007. Technical report, Cat. no. PHE 87. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
- Allison, P., & Furstenberg, F. (1989). How marital dissolution affects children: Variations by age and sex. Developmental Psychology, 25(4), 540–549.
- Amato, P. R., & Cheadle, J. (2005). The long reach of divorce: Divorce and well-being across three generations. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 191–206.
- Bailey, T, Eng, W., Trisch, M., and Snyder, C.R. (2007). “Hope and optimism as related to life satisfaction,” Journal of Positive Psychology, 2(3), 168-169.
- Bamigboye, Lucas, Agbeja, Adewale, Ogunleye and Fawole 2006 in Methodology of Basic and Applied Research .(2nd ed.) Edited by Olayinka A.I., Taiwo V.O., Raji-Oyelade A., Farai I.P. The Postgraduate School, University of Ibadan.
- Bandura A, Blahard EB, Ritter B. (1969). Relative efficacy of desensitization and modelling approaches for inducing behavioural, affective, and attitudinal changes. J Pers Soc Psychol;13:173-99.
- Bandura A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.
