BEREAVEMENT AMONG MIDDLE-AGE CHRISTIANS IN EFFUTU MUNICIPALITY, CENTRAL REGION, GHANA

ABSTRACT The study explored the challenges, coping strategies and consequences of bereavement for middle-aged Christian widows and widowers in Effutu Municipality. The exploratory two-stage sequential mixed method research approach was used. In the first stage, interviews were conducted with nine participants comprising five middle-aged widows and four middle-aged widowers. The cross-sectional survey design involving a purposely selected sample of 302 participants completed the questionnaire for the second stage. The reliability coefficients for the three parts of the instruments were 0.814, 0.838 and 0.724 respectively. Independent samples t-test, MANOVA and Multiple regression analysis were used to test the stated hypotheses. Findings revealed that middle-age Christian widows and widowers faced lots of challenges during bereavement and psychological challenge was the most dominant challenge with symptoms of depression. The findings also indicated that middle-age widows and widowers adopted effective coping strategies during bereavement and majority of them used the problem-focused coping strategy. Also, years in widowhood had a significant effect on the challenges, coping strategies and consequences. Further, the results showed that age was a contributing factor to middle-age widowhood and the dominant age group was between 36 and 45 years of age. The study concludes that coping strategy plays a significant role in the relationship between bereavement challenges and consequences. The study recommends that counselors and clinicians could systematically use the coping strategies studied in this research to help widows and widowers cope effectively during bereavement and subsequently improve their mental health and well-being.