Self-esteem and psychological distress among involuntary childless couples: Moderating roles of coping strategies

Abstract

The inverse relationship between self-esteem and psychological distress among couple with involuntary childlessness had been documented. Yet the moderating role of coping strategies in this relationship have received little attention. This study investigated the moderating roles of coping strategies on the relationship between self-esteem and psychological distress among Nigerian couples with involuntary childlessness. Participants comprised one hundred and fifty-two (152) married men and women (males = 64 and female = 88, Mean age: 41.32, SD: 6.38 years) drawn from South-East Nigeria. They completed measures of psychological distress, self-esteem scale and coping strategies. Result of moderated regression analysis showed that emotion focused coping was a significant predictor of psychological distress. The result also showed that emotion focussed coping moderated the relationship between self-esteem and psychological distress such that psychological distress was lower for high self-esteem individuals who adopted lower emotion focussed coping compared to individuals with low-self-esteem who adopted low emotion focussed coping. Whereas problem focused coping was not a moderator between self-esteem and psychological distress. The findings in this study underscore the importance of de-emphasizing greater use of emotion focussed coping as this may result in higher psychological distress among couple with the challenge of involuntary childlessness.