Self esteem, depression and coping strategies among adolescents
Abstract
Self esteem and depression among adolescents has for long been a silent challenge. Self esteem
is an important psychological construct for healthy grooming of personality. Teenagers with
low self-esteem often tend to exhibit anxiety, depression and increase in antisocial behavior.
The major aim of the study was to examine the relationship between self esteem, depression
and the copying strategies among the adolescents. The study targeted 100 adolescents, in all
different categories of early, middle and late adolescence and a qualitative research design;
correlational method was adopted to establish the relationship between the variables.
A constructed self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from the 100
respondents. Collected data was analyzed using Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS
Version, 23) and Pearson Correlation Coefficient (r) was used to test the level of significance
of the hypotheses.
Results show there is a significant positive relationship between self esteem and depression
among adolescents (r = .591**, p=.00<0.01) as well as there is significant positive relationship
between self esteem and adolescents (r=.391* , p =-004<0.05). Results also revealed that that
the strategies for coping with self esteem and depression would yield success because of the
positive relationship between them (r=.837** , p=.001<0.01).
Self esteem is central to what we do with our lives-the loyalty we have to developing ourselves
and caring for others and is at the heart of everything that an adolescent will achieve in their
lives.