Family Environment v/s Mental Health of Adolescents: A Search for the Facts

Abstract

The main purpose of the present study was to study the emotional maturity, family environment and mental health of the adolescent students. A sample of 60 students was taken from the Govt. Sr. Sec. School of Delhi for the present study. Out of which 30 students was male and 30 were females having an age group 15 to 18 years. Family Environment Scale of Bhatia and Chadha (1993) was used in the present study. This scale has 4 sub scales like Cohesion, Expressiveness, Conflict, Acceptance and Caring. Five response options are provided for each statement like “Strongly agree”, “Agree”, “Neutral”, “Disagree” and “Strongly disagree’. The overall Test Reliability Coefficient fit the scale is 0.95. Mental Health Battery (MHB) of Singh and Gupta (2008) was also used. This scale consists of 130 statements; each statement is in “Yes or No” form. The scale has two sections A and B. Section-A collects the information related the socio- economic status of the family and section-B with other dimensions like emotional stability, over all adjustment, autonomy, security – insecurity, self-concept, and intelligence. A tool of Yashvir Singh and Mahesh Bhargava (1999) was applied to measure emotional maturity of the students. It is made up of 48 items in a self-reporting five-point Likert scale. The higher the score, the greater the degree of emotional immaturity and vice versa. It measures the five categories such as Emotional Stability (ES), Emotional Progression (EP), Social Adjustment (SD), Personality Integration (PI) and Independence (I). It was found that there is a significant correlation between Family Climate, Mental Health and emotional maturity. Both the groups of male and female students were having more or less equal emotional maturity level.