Osećaj porodične koherentnosti kod adolescenata

Abstract

The main point of this dissertation is to promote salutogenesis and Aaron Antonovsky's idea to search for the factors that promote health and not disease in the study of adolescents and their families, and to find the importance the salutogenic health model has, or may have in the preservation and improvement of health. The survey that was carried out is a continuation of the author's research conducted on a sample of families from Kosovo, with the aim of improving and strengthening the mental health of adolescents on their way to adulthood, on a practical level, with the involvement of experts. On the basis of the previous studies of sense of coherence on a sample of adolescents in our country, it is determined that there is a correlation with the variables included in this study. Considering the fact that the studies on the sense of family coherence are so rare (especially in our country), this study aims to improve the research scene on this problem. The results of the study, which was conducted for the last ten years on different age groups of people living in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, point out a specific chronic social crisis in the region and the impact that living in conditions of social crisis can have on the individual aspects of personality. The object of this research, broadly defined, is the connection between a sense of family coherence among adolescents from Kosovo and Central Serbia (n = 360 adolescents, 15 to 24 years of age) and: family and partner affective attachment, self-esteem, age, family's financial situation, parents' level of education, vulnerability level in terms of the social crisis, strategies for proactive coping with stress, family satisfaction. The main issue of the research is to examine whether, in terms of a double crisis (developmental and social), the adolescents from Kosovo became ''victims'' or ''survivors'', what is the role of a sense of family coherence, and is the sense of coherence stronger among the younger or the older adolescents, among adolescent boys or adolescent girls. More precisely, the problem of the research is to examine whether there is a connection between a sense of family coherence among adolescents with: the degree of vulnerability of adolescents in terms of social crisis, family satisfaction (general and global), family affective attachment dimensions (avoidance and anxiety), models of partnership attachment (model of self and model of others), proactive coping, self-esteem, family's financial situation and parents' level of education; and whether there are differences in the intensity of the sense of family coherence in relation to some socio-demographic variables: place of residence, age, and adolescents' gender. This dissertation is salutogenic oriented, based on the salutogenic approach to health, i.e. on the salutogenesis and the feeling of coherence (Sagy and Antonovsky, 1992; Antonovsky and Sourani, 1988; Antonovsky, 1984). We focus on the sense of family coherence as one of the resources in the developmental and social crisis, which affects the health preservation and movement of the individual toward the positive pole of the health-illness continuum. Conducted research aimed to determine the connection between the sense of family coherence in adolescents, as an important resource in the developmental and social crisis, with the variables that were included in the study based on the settings of Aaron Antonovsky's salutogenic model of health. The survey used: Socio-Demographic Questionnaire for Obtaining Basic Data (constructed for the purposes of research), Questionnaire on the Degree of Vulnerability of the Individual in Terms of Social Crisis (Minic, 2009), The Family Sense of Coherence Scale (Antonovsky & Sourani, 1988), The Family Adaptation Scale (Antonovsky & Sourani, 1988), The Family Attachment Assessing Questionnaire (Brennan, Clark & Shaver, 1995), The Relationship Questionnaire – for the assessment of partner attachment (Bartolomew & Horowitz, 1991), The Proactive Coping Inventory (Greenglass et. al., 1999) and Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). In the processing of data we used: descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages, M and SD), correlation analysis, t-test, analysis of variance and regression analysis. The results of the research pointed put that there is a positive correlation between the sense of family coherence and family satisfaction, self-esteem, model of partnership affective attachment, proactive coping with stress and family's financial situation, and that there is a negative correlation between the sense of family coherence and the dimensions of family attachment (avoidance and anxiety). No statistically significant correlation between the sense of family coherence and the degree of vulnerability of the individual in terms of social crisis and the educational level of the father and mother was determined. The results also showed that there was a high positive correlation between the sense of family coherence of fathers and mothers, but no statistically significant correlation between the sense of family coherence in adolescents and a sense of family coherence of fathers and mothers. There are differences in the intensity of the feeling of family coherence in relation to the place of residence (Kosovo and Metohija, Central Serbia), age (middle and late adolescence) and adolescents' gender. Younger adolescents (15 to 19 years old) have a stronger sense of family coherence than older adolescents (20 to 24 years old). Intelligibility as a component of a sense of family coherence is more prominent among adolescents living in Kosovo and Metohija, compared to adolescents who live in Central Serbia. The results also point out that female participants in the study have a stronger sense of meaningfulness as a component of family coherence, compared to male participants. The sense of family coherence was stronger among adolescents with secure affective attachment styles, compared to adolescents with rejecting and fearful form of family affective attachment. Adolescents and their parents have adequate health resources, their mental health in terms of developmental and social crisis is not impaired thus preventive measures should be aimed at protecting and improving their health. The results of the research pointed out that the families of adolescents are an important source of a sense of family coherence and an important source of resistance in terms of developmental and social crisis. In addition, the results showed that the sense of family coherence at a family level is a good basis for further development and that is what makes a family an appropriate developmental environment for adolescents. The obtained data are consistent with most hypotheses and with the results of some previous studies.