The Influence of Maternal Separation on Anxiety Symptoms Among Public School Children in Homa Bay County, Kenya

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between maternal separation and anxiety symptoms among public school children in Homa Bay County, Kenya. Guided by Bowlby’s Attachment Theory and the Multi-Context Attachment Resilience Theory (MCART), the study adopted a concurrent convergent mixed-methods research design. The quantitative component comprised 240 children aged 8–17 years, consisting of 120 children who had experienced prolonged maternal separation and 120 children who had not experienced prolonged maternal separation and constituted the comparison group, drawn from 16 selected public schools in Homa Bay County. Quantitative data were collected using an adapted Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) questionnaire, while qualitative data were obtained through semi-structured interviews with 20 alternative caregivers, 10 teachers or school counsellors, and focus group discussions with 24 older children and adolescents. The adapted anxiety questionnaire demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.782. The study addressed an empirical and contextual gap in the Kenyan literature, where limited evidence has specifically isolated maternal separation as an exposure and compared anxiety symptoms among children who had experienced prolonged maternal separation with those who had not. The study found that, among the children who had experienced maternal separation, labour migration was the most frequently reported pathway of separation (38.3%), followed by maternal death (26.7%), marital dissolution resulting in maternal absence (17.5%), maternal abandonment (10.8%), and maternal imprisonment (6.7%). The mean duration of maternal separation was 18.9 months (SD = 4.2). A marked difference was observed in overall anxiety symptom scores between the two quantitative groups. Children who had experienced prolonged maternal separation recorded a mean anxiety score of 58.75 (SD = 11.54), compared with 10.83 (SD = 3.00) among children in the comparison group. Among children who had experienced maternal separation, worry recorded the highest mean anxiety manifestation score (M = 16.11, SD= 3.79), followed by fear (M = 14.45, SD = 3.80), withdrawal (M = 14.34, SD = 3.99), and nervousness (M = 13.85, SD = 4.24). Within the maternal-separation group, duration of separation, caregiver arrangement, and reason for separation were not significantly associated with anxiety symptom scores. However, age was positively and significantly associated with anxiety symptoms (r = 0.213, p = 0.020). Regarding coping, 60.0% of the children reported adaptive strategies, primarily academic and peer engagement and religious involvement, while 40.0% reported maladaptive strategies, including emotional withdrawal and social isolation. Among caregivers, informal financial-support networks and community or elder counsel were the most frequently reported adaptive strategies, while 29.1% reported family silence regarding maternal absence. The study concludes that children who had experienced prolonged maternal separation reported substantially higher anxiety symptom levels than children who had not experienced prolonged maternal separation, although anxiety within the maternal-separation group varied according to developmental age rather than duration or pathway of separation. The study recommends strengthening school-based counselling and psychosocial support, caregiver-support programmes, and child-welfare interventions for children affected by maternal separation in Homa Bay County.