LONELINESS AND ADJUSTMENT STRATEGIES OF ELDERLY WIDOWS AS PERCEIVED BY PARTICIPANTS IN ONDO STATE: IMPLICATION FOR COUNSELLING

The study investigated loneliness and adjustment strategies as they relate to elderly widows in Ondo State, Nigeria. Four research hypotheses were formulated for the study. A sample of 226 elderly widows was randomly selected from all the local governments in Ondo State. The researchers employed simple random sampling technique to select 226 respondents consisting of 150 Christians, 59 African traditional religionists and 17 Muslims. The ‘Loneliness and Adjustment Strategies Questionnaire” (LASQ) was administered to the respondents to collect relevant data. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the four null hypotheses generated and where the result of ANOVA showed a significant difference, the Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) statistics was used to determine the group(s) that contributed to the significant difference. The findings showed that there were significant differences in the participants’ perception of loneliness and adjustment strategies among elderly widows in Ondo State based on age and religious affiliation. However, significant difference was not found in participants’ perception of adjustment strategies employed by elderly widows in Ondo State on the basis of age. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that, where applicable, elderly widows could be considered for political positions, government should encourage the legislature to legislate against torturing and maltreatment of elderly widows; the widows should be facilitated to join support groups and where practicable should be encouraged to re-marry or become more social-media savvy.