Browsing by Author "Ndungi, Elizabeth Maina"

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    Relationship between Family Cohesion and Psychological Distress among the Youth in Middle-Level Colleges within Nairobi City County, Kenya
    (Kenyatta University, 2025-05) Ndungi, Elizabeth Maina
    Globally, research has indicated presence of high levels of psychological distress that is typical among the youth with at least 20% experiencing psychological distress. Worse still, family cohesion has been reported to be declining. Studies on psychological distress and family cohesion have mainly focused on the general youth population and university students leaving out a majority of youth in middle level colleges. That is why this project sought to investigate the relation between family cohesion and psychological distress among the young people in middle–level colleges in Nairobi City County, Kenya. These were the objectives; to evaluate the levels of family cohesion, to investigate the prevalence of psychological distress and to establish the relationship between family cohesion and psychological distress among the youth in middle level colleges. The study was guided by the Olson’s Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems. On research methodology, a correlation design was employed to explore the occurrence of a relation between psychological distress and family cohesion. The target population were students enrolled in middle-level colleges aged 18-25 years. Multistage sampling was utilized to sample the students from 20 public (6) and private (14) middle level colleges within Nairobi City County, Kenya. Pilot study was conducted from 40 respondents (12 from a public and 28 from a private middle-level college) located in Kiambu County, Kenya. Using the Yamane (1973) formula, a total of 411 students were sampled from the selected middle level colleges in Nairobi County. The Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation (FACES) (Cohesion sub-scale) and the Kessler’s Psychological Distress Scale (K10) were adopted in the questionnaire to measure the levels of family cohesion and prevalence of psychological distress respectively. The internal reliability co-efficient for FACES III (cohesion subscale) was 0.86 and the K10 was 0.93. To ensure validity, face, content and construct validities were employed through rigorous literature review and adherence to study topic and objectives respectively. Data was collected through physical distribution of the questionnaires to students found within the colleges regardless of their year of study. Both inferential and descriptive statistics were used to analyse data using SPSS-25 version. The results revealed a considerable number of respondents had unbalanced levels of cohesion (69.1%) and a prevalence of 53.7 % in psychological distress. Pearson’s product moment correlation (r) was used to find the association between family cohesion and psychological distress and a strong negative correlation was established (-.747). Chi-square and ANOVA results showed a strong negative association as well between family cohesion and psychological distress. The results were displayed through tables. As a result, it was established that family cohesion is a highly significant factor in managing psychological distress among the young people. Mitigating factors need to be identified to address the high observed psychological distress. The results of the study yielded significant information that will inform guidance and counselling programs in learning institutions and especially middle-level colleges in reference to providing mental health support and youth mental health policy advancement in Kenya.