Josephat Chinawa et.al.

(2014) found that females have a lower self esteem when compared
with their male folks. During adolescence, maintenance of stable and high self-esteem
appears as a challenging task particularly for girls. It was envisaged that some of specific
concerns that add burden to the task of self-development for girls, such as concerns with
peer acceptance, sensitivity to the conflicting social role expectations, opportunity of
socialization with peer group, freedom of expression actually bring almost a major switch
in the life style of females. The self esteem questionnaire used was classified into two major
questions with several sub questions.

Josephat Chinawa

Herbert Anayo Obu

P. C. Manyike

Ikechukwu Emmanuel Obi

Odutola Israel Odetunde

Awoere T. Chinawa

Thus a constant ongoing struggle within the self for adjustment in

this new phase of life and maintenance of tha
image which is imposed by the societal and
cultural values may often clash with the needs

and values of the females of this age group and

resulting in lower self-esteem in comparison to
their counterparts [20].
20. Self-esteem issues impact women's future
success self-esteem issues impact
women's future success pr newswire,
London; 2012.

The study was carried out among adolescents attending secondary schools
from two
cities; (Enugu and Abakiliki located in south eastern part of Nigeria) within age
range of 10-19 yr. A
structured self administered questionnaire developed from self esteem scores was
used for data
collection.
Pearsons chi-square was used to test for relationship between categorical variables
while student
t- test was used to test significant relationship between continuous variables. Test
of significance
was set at p<0.5.
Results: The self esteem questionnaire used was classified into two major questions
with several
sub questions. The first group is about self confidence, self fulfillment and
self worth and
confidence, the second group include depression, hopelessness, loneliness, and
suicidal thoughts.
We enrolled 507 adolescents in this study.
YEAR: 2014