Meaningful Causal Model among Psycho-sociological Factors on Psychological Well-being of the Hearing Impaired Adolescents in Southwest, Nigeria

Abstract

More often than not, hearing impaired individuals strive to adjust to varying challenges in the society, which could have negative effects on their psychological wellbeing. Studies on the psychological well-being of adolescents with hearing impairment are generally scanty and have not sufficiently addressed causal interactions of variables of interest on the psychological well-being of such adolescents.This study, therefore, investigated through a path analysis, the most meaningful causal model (involving hearing impaired adolescents‘ socio-demographic and psychological characteristics) for hearing impaired adolescents‘ psychological well-being in South West Nigeria. The study adopted survey research design of ex-post facto type. Purposive sampling was used to select eight Senior Secondary Schools and 491 adolescents with hearing impairment using a battery operated audiometer. Seven validated instruments were used to gather data for the study. One research question was answered. Data were analysed using path-analysis. There were 23 significant and meaningful pathways to psychological well-being. These were: P₉₈ : β =.291; P₉₇: β =.116; P₉₅: β =.186; P₉₄: β =.129; P₉₂: β =.054; and P₉₁: β =.054 among others. Age, gender and self-concept are observed to have enormous number of pathways, making them to be very important and potent factors in explaining the causal model of the psychological well-being of the hearing impaired adolescents. Hearing impaired adolescents should pay serious attention to all the psycho-sociological factors, most importantly those that have direct, significant and meaningful effects on their psychological wellbeing. Intervention programmes should be designed on the aforementioned factors so as to enhance the psychological well-being of the hearing impaired adolescents in southwest Nigeria.

Keywords: Psychological well-being,, Age, Self-concept, Hearing impairment, Self-efficacy

Gender & Behaviour, 10(2), December 2012