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Metty Vironica and Sunidharan
IGNOU Regional Centre, India
Received: 16-Mar-2022 Accepted: 09-Mar-2022 Published:02-Mar-2022
ScientificTracks Abstracts: J Neurol Clin Neurosci
Today, parental divorce is more common than in the past and more than one million children experiences parental divorce in every year (Pálmarsdóttir, 2012).As a report from economist Jacob and anthropologist Chattopodhyay (2016) by examining data from Indian Censes, reveal that 1.3 million people in India are divorced. In Kerala, the divorce rate shows very high rather than in other states of India.Divorce is a traumatic experience for children. Adolescents in particular experience divorce as distressing. It is a highly stressful and emotional experience for children, but it can often feel to the children that their whole world had been turned upside down. At any age, it can be traumatic to witness the dissolution of parents’ marriage and the breakup of the family (Kemp, Smith and Segal, 2017). As Pajares and Urdan (2004) pointed out that adolescents today encounter difficulties and more life challenges than previous generation. The biological and psychological turmoil within them and other factors like family system, parenting, poverty, socioeconomic status, school environment, peer pressure etc. aggravates the problems due to divorce faced by the adolescents. In the light of reports in newspapers regarding ever increasing family disintegration in Kerala, there is a pressing need to make a comparative study on social support, well-being and meaning in life of divorced parental adolescents. The purpose of this study is to understand the Perceived Social Support, General Well- Being and Meaning in Life of Adolescents of with divorced parents. It also examines relation of Perceived Social Support and Meaning in Life to General Well-being. In this study, the sample consisted of 80 adolescents (both males and females), out of which 40 comprised adolescents of divorced parents and 40 from those belong to intact families (control group). Using purposive sampling, the sample was drawn from one district of Kerala state of India. The age of the respondent was in the range of 13-17 years. The measures used in the study are Multi-dimensional scale of perceived social support (Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet and Farley,1988), PGI General well-being scale (Verma and Verma ,1989) and Meaning in Life Questionnaire (Steger, 2010). The descriptive statistics were calculated to understand the levels of General well-being, Perceived Social Support and the Meaning in Life of the present sample and to Compare the mean scores on General Well-Being, Social Support and Meaning in Life of adolescents of divorced parent with adolescents from intact families, separate student ‘t’ test were performed. Similar statistical techniques were used to understand the gender difference on these variables. The correlations of General Well-being to Perceived Social Support and Meaning in Life were computed using Product moment correlation. The result showed that majority of the adolescents of divorced parents (70%) has low range of General Well-being. General well-being of adolescents of divorced parents is lower when compared to adolescents from intact families. Adolescents of divorced parents perceived less social support from family and friends. And perceived social support from family and friends are not significantly correlated with General well-being of adolescents of divorced parents. Similarly, adolescents of divorced parents reported lower in the dimensions of Meaning in Life as compared to adolescents from intact families. Meaning in Life is not significantly correlated with General well-being of adolescents of divorced parents. The findings of the study are implicated in psychological knowledge for appropriate and timely professional service for such adolescents.
Metty Vironica, Sunidharan completed her MA in Clinical Psychology at IGNOU Regional Centre Cochin. She did her Undergraduate in Mahatma Gandhi University, India.
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