Stress, coping and quality of life: An exploratory study of the psychological well-being of Ghanaian orphans placed in orphanages

Previous studies have demonstrated that parental loss and orphanage placement can be stressful and can negatively affect the psychological well-being of children. However, studies on the psychological well-being of orphanage-placed children in Accra, Ghana are scarce and the impact of parental loss and orphanage placement is minimally understood. The aim of the present study was to explore stress (symptoms of depression and anxiety), coping and the overall quality of life of orphaned children in comparison to non-orphans who resided with their parents. We sampled 200 participants aged between 7 and 17 years, with 100 being orphaned children placed in four orphanages (experimental group) and 100 non-orphans from two public schools in Accra, Ghana (control group). The participants completed the Children's Depression Inventory, the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, the Kidcope scale and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF Version. One-way Analysis of Variance revealed that orphaned children showed more anxiety symptoms than non-orphans but there were no significant differences between orphaned children and non-orphans on symptoms of depression and overall quality of life. The Pearson product-moment correlation analyses revealed significant correlations between depression, anxiety, coping and quality of life in the orphaned children and non-orphans. Stepwise regression analyses also revealed that for orphaned children, anxiety and support-seeking coping emerged as significant predictors of qualify of life whereas depression emerged as a significant predictor of quality of life for the non-orphaned children. The implications of the results are discussed.