Resilience, Social Support and Psychological Well-Being in Widows and Widowers

Author: Shumaila Mushtaq

Supervisor: Gull-e-Sehar

Degree: M.Sc

Year: 2014-2016

University: Institute of Applied Psychology, Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

A correlational study was conducted to find out the relationship between resilience, social support and psychological well-being in widows and widowers. It was hypothesized that resilience and social support would be positively related to the psychological well-being. By using non probability snow ball sampling strategy, the sample of 100 participants (widowers = 50, widows = 50) with age range of 26 to70 (M = 34.93,  SD = 9.27) were recruited from different areas of Lahore city. Resilience was measured by Connor and Davidson Resilience Scale (2003) and social support was measured by Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support by Zimet, Dahlem and Farley (1988) and psychological well- being was measured by Flourishing Scale by Diener and Diener (2009) for data collection. Correlational analyses revealed that resilience, social support of family and significant others were positively related to psychological well-being of widows and widowers. Results from hierarchical regression analysis revealed that resilience and perceived social  support of friends  predicted psychological  well-being. Moreover, widowers had significantly higher score in total score of perceived social support and psychological well-being as compared to widows. The findings of this work have important implications for researchers, practitioners, and health providers to understand the phenomenon of spousal loss and to build stress-coping paradigms for bereaved spouses.

Keywords: Resilience, Social Support, Psychological Well-being, Widows, Widowers.

Visit University to get the full thesis.

Corresponding Address: Department of Applied Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. Email: chairperson@appsy.pu.edu.pk, Phone: 92-42-9231245

Leave a Reply