Low self-esteem and psychiatric patients: Part II – The relationship between self-esteem and demographic factors and psychosocial stressors in psychiatric patients

The present study was carried out on a consecutive sample of 1,190 individuals attending an open-access psychiatric outpatient clinic. Patients were diagnosed according to DSM III-R diagnostic criteria following detailed assessments. At screening, patients and controls completed two self-esteem questionnaires, the Rosenberg self-esteem scale and the Janis and Field Social Adequacy scale. In addition, a large amount of demographic and psychosocial data was collected on all patients.Significantly increased self-esteem was observed with an increase in age, educational achievement and income. Employed patients showed significantly higher self-esteem compared to unemployed patients. Female patients had a significantly lower self-esteem compared to male patients. The self-esteem of psychiatric patients did not vary significantly with their marital status. No relationship was detected between acute stressors and the self-esteem of psychiatric patients, although severe enduring stressors were associated with lower self-esteem in psychiatric patients.The results of this large study demonstrate that the self-esteem of adult psychiatric patients is affected by a number of demographic and psychosocial factors including age, sex, educational status, income, employment status, and enduring psychosocial stressors.Previous research in non-psychiatric populations has shown that self-esteem is related to a number of demographic factors such as sex [1-4], age [1,5-8], marital status [9,10], educational status [11-20], and income [21-23]. Self-esteem is also related to various psychosocial factors, including life events [24-26], social support [27-29], and delinquency [30-34]. However, sometimes these findings have not been consistent between studies. For example, while a majority of researchers [1-4] have reported higher global self-esteem in men compared to women, others have not found these differences [35,36].Nonetheless, since previous research mostly has been carried out in non-p