The psychosocial issues of orphaned youth by HIV/AIDS in Western Kenya

Despite the elaborate intervention strategies and huge emphasis on AIDS and orphan hood, there is a looming danger that might create a lost generation of young people who are growing up without role models, parental guidance, warmth, love and proper care. Young people in these times of AIDS are charged with the responsibility of caring for their infected parents until they die; and thereafter to care for their siblings. Despite playing these important roles coupled with their complex developmental issues young people face as they negotiate their independence towards adulthood, there is generally a lack of concern as far as the psychosocial issues experienced by youth who are orphaned due to AIDS is concerned as evidence by paucity of published literature. This research therefore, focused on the psychosocial issues of youth orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Western Kenya. This comparative study compared youth who have lost their parent(s) to AIDS, to those who have lost parent(s) through other causes and youth from intact families. The study explored the daily hassles and uplifts as experienced by these three categories. Their psychological well-being was studied in a bid to understand how this phenomenon has impacted on the orphaned young people emotional well-being. The extend to which self-efficacy (resilience), perceived social support and good coping strategies buffer young people from HIV/AIDS impact were studied. Data was obtained from 156 students at the Moi University. One way ANOVA test used to test the mean hassles and mean uplifts scores revealed there were not significantly different across the participants' status. Investigations to determine whether the mean scores for anxiety, self esteem, and depression depend on participants' status; a further one way ANOVA was carried out, which revealed based on overall F-test the mean self esteem and depression scores are significantly different at 5% level of significant.;A pair- wise Pearson correlation was performed to investigate whether anxiety, depression and self esteem scores depend on the coping skills, self-efficacy and perceived social support. Results indicate depression significantly associated with social support, while self esteem is significantly associated with self-efficacy. The qualitative data further validated these findings by revealing that orphaned youth by AIDS were depressed and had poor self-esteem.