A Cross-sectional Study to Assess the Self-esteem Among Adolescents in an Urban Poor Locality of Bengaluru City

Abstract

Self-esteem refers to the individual’s perception or subjective appraisal of one’s own self-worth, self-confidence and self-respect. Self-esteem plays an important role in determining and preventing mental health disorders. There is a dearth in the knowledge of understanding self-esteem among Indian urban slum adolescents; therefore, this study was taken to assess self-esteem among adolescents of an urban poor locality using ‘The Rosenberg Self-esteem scale’. A cross-sectional survey among adolescents aged 15 to 19 years was conducted from April to June 2023 in the urban poor locality of Bangalore. Taking prevalence of low self-esteem among adolescents as 15.3%, the sample size was calculated as 200. Out of 200 subjects, 52.7% were females and 47.5% were male. We found that 28.0% were school dropouts. The study showed a majority of the subjects had normal or high self-esteem and 10.5% had low self-esteem. Increasing age of the adolescents was found to be significantly associated with self-esteem scores ( p < .05). This study identified that 10.5% had poor self-esteem and they need support from family, school and Sneha Clinic at Urban Primary Health Centre to improve their life skills and prevent mental health issues in adolescence and adulthood.