Burn -Out as a Psychological Effect of Widowhood in Meru County, Kenya: Comparative Study of Widows and Widowers

Abstract

Widowhood is a state of losing a spouse through death and has been on the increase in Kenya and all over the world. A spouse’s death is traumatic and affect the widowed persons’ psychological well-being, as they go through the various stages of bereavement. They may become withdrawn, less motivated, become frustrated and isolated which may affect their mental and physical wellbeing when burn-out sets in. There may be adverse effects of widowhood that are psychological since the widowed persons may rate themselves low, have disturbing memories and fatigue after the death of the spouse whom they shared life with. In Meru community, no research has been done on the psychological effects of widowhood yet widowhood is traumatic and a common phenomenon in the community. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the psychological effects of burn-out by comparing widowed men and women in Meru County Kenya. A literature gap exists in Kenya on burn-out of widowed men and women thus motivating the author to come up with such a study. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine burn-out as a psychological effect of widowhood   by comparing widowed men and women in Meru County Kenya.  Ex post facto’s causal-comparative research design was considered appropriate for the study because of comparison of groups. A sample of 384 widowed persons (192 widows and 192 widowers) in four Districts that were purposively selected making a total of 384 respondents. Data was collected by use of questionnaires which were administered to widowed persons and two Focus Group Discussions for widowed persons were held in each of the four selected Districts; one for the widowers and another for widows. Data analysis was done by use of descriptive and inferential statistics. Inferential statistics included t-test which was used to establish whether differences in burn-out as a psychological effect existed between widowed men and women. Descriptive statistics that included frequencies, means and percentages were also used. The findings revealed variations in the widowed persons’ psychological effect of widowhood where widows showed high levels of burn-out than widowers. From the   findings, it is evident that absence of either of the spouse negatively affects the mental and physical wellbeing of the living spouse especially widows. Counselling programmes of widowed persons in the country are needed to assist and empower them especially widows who are not allowed to remarry. It is therefore recommended that the Ministry of gender, religious organisations, service providers and other stakeholders should use such programmes to address psychological needs of widowed persons. Finally, the findings may assist the widowed men and women to cope better psychologically with their state of widowhood which is traumatizing as they attach meaning in life and bring up their families single handedly.

Keywords: psychological effect, widowed person, living spouse, widowhood, burn-out, trauma