Abstract
The loss of parents and parental care at early childhood leads to disastrous consequences for an orphan in the later part of his/her life. Even though the child is provided an alternate option of being in a foster family or in an orphanage home a huge gap exists in the psychosocial need and psychosocial support. Several studies reported that this gap leads to psychological problems in the individual child in different forms. The aim of the current study was to find out level of self-esteem and of depression in adolescents living in orphanage home and to see the differences in self-esteem and depression level in orphan children and children living with parents. The study was conducted on 37 adolescents living in orphanage home and compared them with 31 adolescents living with parents, using Rosenberg’s Self Esteem Scale (RES, Rosenberg, 1989) and Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI, Dr. Maria Kovacs, 1992). Result shows that orphan children have low self-esteem and high depression. Results also shows that level of self-esteem is lower in orphan children than children living with parents (t=2.14, df=66, p<.05), and level of depression is significantly high in orphanage children than children living with parents (t=4.02, df=66, p<.01).
