Prevalence and Predictors of Psychache among Widows in Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Widowhood has been ranked by widows as the most stressful and devastating life events. In other to understand how widows survive and manage intense psychological pain, this study was geared towards identifying if there is prevalence of psychache among widows. The study also aimed at identifying if social support can reduce psychache among widows as well as identify roles length of widowhood, age at husband’s death and number of children play on their psychache. Participants for the study comprised of 472 widows with age range of 25 to 79 (M= 58.52, SD=12.73) drawn from the three geo-political zones of Imo State. The widows were drawn from rural and semi-urban areas through convenience and snowball sampling techniques. The Psychache scale and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (with demographic section) were employed for data collection. Cross-sectional survey design and Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analysis were employed. Result revealed a significant prevalence of psychache. Social support, length of widowhood and age at husband’s death had significant inverse relationship with psychache- the higher the perceived social support, longer the length of widowhood and higher the age at husband’s death respectively, the lower psychache among widows in Imo State. However, number of children was not significant predictor of psychache among widows in Imo State. It was recommended inter-alia that the government should create better welfare programmes that will support and ameliorate the plights of widows, especially among younger widows and during early widowhood.