EFFECT OF SOCIAL SKILLS TRAINING ON THE PSYCHOSOCIAL WELLBEING OF YOUNG WIDOWS FACING WIDOWHOOD PRACTICES IN SOUTH-EAST-NIGERIA

Abstract

The study sought to investigate Social Skills Training (SST) on the psychosocial well-being of young widows facing widowhood practices in South-East, Nigeria. The study involved quasiexperimental research design with pre-test, post-test, control group design. There were three research questions and one hypothesis that guided the study. The study population involved all the young widows between ages 18 to 35 years in South-East numbering 4,012 registered widows in two selected states. The sample size consisted of 96 young registered widows. The study employed multi-Stage sampling techniques. A 32- item researchers' made questionnaire titled: Widowhood Practices And Psycho-Social Wellbeing of Young Widows (WPPWW) was used to draw widows who are within the age bracket. Three experts in the field of Guidance and Counselling and Measurement & Evaluation validated the instrument. Cornbrash Alpha was used to determine the reliability of the instrument and the internal consistency reliability of 0.78 was established. The treatment groups were exposed to social skills training technique. The experiment was carried out in four stages thus: the pre-treatment, treatment, post-treatment and follow up. In all, there were twelve sessions of six weeks. Mean and standard deviation were used in answering the research question, null hypothesis was tested using ANCOVA at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that widowhood practices have high level of negative effects on the psycho-social wellbeing of young widows. It also revealed that social skills training techniques improved the psycho-social wellbeing of young widows. Furthermore, the result of the study showed that social skills training has relative effect on the social wellbeing of young widows who were exposed to widowhood practices. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommended an implementation of structured SST program specifically designed for young widows expose to widowhood practices.