Critique of a Research Article

Briefly describe the purpose of the research study

The research article critique will focus on Emotional health and self-esteem among adolescents in Malaysian orphanages by Mohammadzadeh, Awang, Shahar, and Ismail, published in 2018. It is widely believed that adolescents are healthy. However, statistics have shown that there is an increase in mental health difficulties in this population. Particularly, cases of mental health among children living in the orphanages have been on the rise, with an estimated 80% of the children in orphanages reported to have mental illnesses (Mohammadzadeh, Awang, Shahar, & Ismail, 2018). However, the authors noted that there is a lack of reliable data and information on the extent of mental health among this population in Malaysia. Lack of knowledge and reliable data has contributed to the poor development of strategies to address mental health among children living in orphanages. Consequently, this investigation's objective was to determine the prevalence of anxiety, depression, stress, and the level of self-esteem among adolescents living in orphanages and examine the association between the identified issues with socio-demographic factors in a particular population (Mohammadzadeh et al., 2018).

The Independent and Dependent Variable(s)
Independent Variables

The independent variables (IV) are mainly obtained from the demographic factors among the respondents. Consequently, there are various independent variables. Age is one of IV, where the respondents are between 12 and 18 years (Mohammadzadeh et al., 2018). Gender is another IV in this investigation. For example, out of 287 participants, 154 (53.7%) were males, while 133 (46.3%) were female respondents. The race is the third IV, with participants selected from four major races; Malay (67.2%), Chinese (4.9%), Indian (22.3%), and others (5.6%) (Mohammadzadeh et al., 2018). The education level of the participant is another independent variable of this investigation with three levels of education selection; primary school (7.7%), secondary school (87.8%), and others (4.5%). The parental status is another independent variable with the participants selected from the categories: lost both parents (7.3%), lost one parent (49.1%), and living with both parents (43.6%). Finally, the duration of stay at home is another independent variable with four categories selected; less than six months (5.6%), 6-12 months (11.5%), 1-2 years (28.2%), and more than two years (54.7%) (Mohammadzadeh et al., 2018).

Dependent Variable

The investigation involved four dependent variables. Depression with minimum and maximum scores of 1 to 17. Anxiety ranging from 0 to 18, stress ranging from 2 to 20, and self-esteem ranging from 14 to 40. The results showed that most of the respondents had extra severe anxiety at 30.3%, followed by severe anxiety at 23%, mild anxiety (17.8%), and mild anxiety at 9.1%. Further, the investigation showed that depression was significantly associated with gender, where most of the depressed participants being female respondents. However, there was no correlation between depression and other demographic factors. Stress and anxiety showed a moderate and direct relationship with depression (Mohammadzadeh et al., 2018, p. 120). Consequently, the investigation revealed a lack of significant association between self-esteem and other demographic factors.

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