Relationship Between Meaning Making And Coping Strategies In Women Incarcerated At Kisumu Women Prison, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Incarceration of women in KWP produces various indices of existential harms experienced cognitively as meaninglessness and functionally as ineffective coping. The women enter prison in perilous states which potentially disrupt their lives, restrict their liberties, challenge their self-identity, and distort their global meaning, diminishing their prospects for mental and behavioral health recovery. Thus, women need to restore coherence and transform the prison experience into optimal growth. Meaning-making is a necessary and essential accompaniment of incarceration that protects and enhances incarcerated women’s well-being through meaning reconstruction and the development of psychosocial resources through use of effective coping strategies. In order to successfully propagate meaning-making, stakeholders working with this population require empirically tested information that would informs interventions and mitigation efforts. Thus, the study sought to establish associations between meaning-making and coping strategies in women incarcerated at KWP. The study was guided by the following objectives: to establish psychological correlates of presence of meaning-making in women incarcerated at KWP, establish social correlates of presence of meaning-making in women incarcerated at KWP, determine influence of selected demographic characteristics on meaning-making in women incarcerated at KWP, and, determine coping strategies that predict meaning-making in women incarcerated at KWP. Meaning-making Model (Park, 2010) was adopted for the present study to illustrate the adaptive nature of meaning-making in relation to coping strategies. Correlational and descriptive survey designs were adopted to study a saturated sample (N = 127) of women aged over 18 years. Data was collected by administering a demographic profile, Personal Meaning Profile-B, and Brief- COPE inventory, which were verified for content validity by subject experts. Test-retest reliability was obtained to establish their suitability and cultural relevance, and was deemed reliable, r (10) .07. Data was analyzed using Pearson’s r for correlations, Kruskal-Wallis H test, an extension of Mann Whitney U test for influence, and regression analysis for prediction, all tested at α = .05 level of significance. The first and second hypotheses were rejected, confirming positive correlations between self transcendence, religion, self acceptance achievement (psychological) and fair treatment, relationship, intimacy (social) factors, and presence of meaning-making in women incarcerated at KWP. The third hypothesis was retained for all except imprisonment term, as the only demographic characteristic that had influence on meaning-making of women incarcerated at KWP. The fourth hypothesis was rejected for emotion- and problem-focused coping strategies confirming that these two predicted meaning-making in women incarcerated at KWP. The study concluded that meaning-making was positively correlated to coping strategies in women incarcerated at KWP. It was recommended that an interdisciplinary approach involving all stakeholders should aim at helping women incarcerated at KWP reappraise their global meaning in the context of their psychosocial resources and imprisonment term and use of effective coping strategies that would promote living a purposeful life – whether they are released from prison – or not.