[Assessment of self esteem among students of high schools in Sabzevar[2010]]

ABSTRACT

Self esteem is the judgment of a person about herself himself. Given that having low self esteem causes many abnormalities such as function reduction,loneliness, substance abuse and self destructive behaviors and also the fact that some studies report low rate of self esteem among students, this study wanted to assess self esteem and some related factors among high school students of Sabzevar. This cross-sectional study was carried out on 270 students of high schools of Sabzevar in 2010.The subjects were selected using multi-stage sampling. The data were collected using PoP questionnaire. The questionnaire included five domains of self-esteem [physical, public, academic, family and social self esteem. Score above 75 was taken as good self esteem, 50-75 was medium and lower than 50 was comsidered as poor. The data were then analyzed by SPSS software version 15.0 using descriptive and analytical statistics t-test, ANOVA and pearson correlation. This study indicated that only 50 students[14%] enjoyed good self steem. There was a positive correlation between the five domains of self esteem. However there is a negative correlation between family self esteem and parent age. Results also showed a significant difference between public and academic self esteem in terms of the gender of the students because the mean of self esteem was higher among the girls. There was significant difference between self esteem domains except academic self esteem and addiction of a member in the family as the mean self esteem was lower among students who had an addicted family member. Mean of self esteem was higher among the students who enjoyed a warm and supportive relationship with their parents [P<0.01]. Considering the low rate of self esteem among students and many problems that can results from unfavorable self esteem it is necessary that parents and high school teachers pay more attention to this age group. Supportive relationship of parents, appropriate age for marriage and non-addicted parents all can improve self esteem among students