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INTRODUCTION

Anxiety is defined as a negatively-valenced psychological state which arises under threatening circumstances and it leads to affective, physiological, and cognitive changes (Northern, 2010). Anxiety sometimes might be a very serious problem, therefore some scientists define it as an unpleasant emotional state and it is often accompanied by fatigue, exhaustion and some physiological symptoms such as rapid heart rate, sweating, nausea, chills, trembling, hyperventilation, fear of doing something uncontrolled, and fear of death (Greist & Jefferson, 2000).

Self-esteem refers to how much value people place on themselves. High self-esteem means positive evaluation of the self and low self-esteem refers to an unfavorable opinion of the self (Baumeister et al. 2003). Self-esteem is indispensable for high quality of life (Branden, 1990) and is related to life satisfaction (Biddle, Fox & Boutcher, 2000).

Exercise is beneficial for various health problems and many negative states are eliminated by physical activity. Therefore effects of exercise on different psychological states have been widely researched (Sagrati, 2009; Schulz, 2008).  Previous research also showed that physical activity increases self-esteem (Debate, 2009; Faulkner, 2007) and diminished anxiety (Oeland, Laessoe, Olesen & Munk-Jorgensen, 2010, Strong et al. 2005)

People’s developing healthy life is an important issue to consider. Family is responsible and the prime factor for healthy development of children (Cebe, 2005). Children living in orphanage experience difficulty in their life because their emotional needs are not met by their parents. Hence, they might have some psychological problems (Tümkaya & Songül, 2005). Especially, orphans need help to solve their life’s problem. Since, exercise programs have been suggested to be psychologically and emotionally beneficial (Sonstroem, 1998), physical activities might be used for psychological wellbeing of children who live in such places without their families.

Rather than physical activity, there might be various individual factors that affect self-esteem and anxiety. For example; age, gender, socio-economic status, school type, occupation of father, education level of father are some of them (Çetinkaya et al.  2006).

The aim of this study was to investigate whether eight weeks practiced physical activities affect Orphans’ self-esteem and anxiety.

METHOD

Participants
25 children (orphans) whose age average was 11,04±084 years voluntarily participated to the research.

Instruments
General anxiety scale:
General anxiety scale that was developed by Sarosan and his friends is made of 45 items. The items are answered as “yes” or “no”. Ören (1989) who reported the validity of this scale applied his validated trait anxiety scale to 50 students and correlated the scores of the two scales. The correlation was found to be .57. The reliability coefficient of the anxiety scale was found to be r: 0.66 by Sarosan and his friends in a study which is conducted in 8 different groups with 40 participants. The correlation between the scores of general anxiety scales was found to be .59 in Ören’s research with 30 participants where there was 3 months gap.

Piers-Harris children's self-concept scale:
Children's self-concept scale which Piers-Harris (1964) developed and Öner (1994) made the language adaptation for, evaluate opinion, emotion and attitude of children for themselves. Reliability coefficient of the subscales range from 0.78 to 0.93 Six factors explain the %42 of the change in total score. Reliability coefficients of Turkish scale range from .81 to .89.

Data collection
Pre-test and post-test research design was used for this research in which the aim was to examine the effect of 8 weeks sportive activities on self-esteem and anxiety of orphans. 8 weeks program (1. 2. 3. week Step aerobic 4.week Step aerobic (Choreography), 5. 6. 7. 8. week Table tennis) of the research. The data was collected by the researchers with the Orphanage’s psychologist.

Analyzing of the data
The data obtained from the research was analyzed by SPSS 15 package. Descriptive statistics techniques and non-parametric tests which are Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon and Spearman correlation test were used in the analysis of the data. Level of significance was determined to be 0,05.

DISCUSSION AND RESULTS

The aim of the study was to examine if physical activities affect self-esteem and anxiety of orphans living in an Orphanage. We also researched if the results vary across gender groups. It was initially assumed that practicing physical activities will result in higher self-esteem and lower anxiety. 

Participants of the study were the orphans from Orphanage. They were a specific group of children and the needs of children staying in these special places are different than other children. Development of these children might be much more different than children living with their parents. Because, man need to experience love and interpersonal contact with their families for their optimum development.  Anxiety levels might get higher and self-esteem levels might be lower due to lack of interaction family members. Consequently, any kind of support to decrease anxiety and increase self-esteem in such contexts is fundamental

Table 1.

The difference between pre-test and post test anxiety point

 

Variable	N	Mean	SD	Z	P
Anxiety Pre-test	25	25.12	9.0246	2.341	0.019*
Anxiety Post-test	25	23.8	8.18535
Self-esteem Pre-test	25	40.28	10.37031	-3.966	0*
Self-esteem Post-test	25	43.04	9.87623

*P<0.05        

There was a significant difference (P<0.05) between pre-test and post-test of anxiety and self-esteem levels of children. According to the other result of the study, as initially thought, it emerged that participating in physical activities resulted in lower anxiety. Previous research also revealed similar results (Oeland et al. 2010). In our study, participants showed lower anxiety after practising physical activities for a period of time. This could be due to the fact that physical activities include various positive factors that lower anxiety. Some of these factors lowering anxiety might be; togetherness, trust, competence, physical wellbeing etc. that people gain in physical activities.

Table 2.
The difference between genders

Variable	Gender	n	Mean	SD	P
Anxiety Pre-test	Female	12	19.21	6.25954	0*
	Male	13	7.27	4.71495
Anxiety Post-test	Female	12	18.92	5.5732	0*
	Male	13	7.54	5.25137
Self-esteem Pre-test	Female	12	7.92	5.34846	0.001*
	Male	13	17.69	9.80123
Self-esteem Post-test	Female	12	8.13	5.75774	0.001*
	Male	13	17.5	9.30467

P<0.05

There was a significant difference (P<0.05) between pre-test and post-test of anxiety and self-esteem levels of children according to gender. Self-esteem score of male participants were found to be higher than females. Previous study also supported this result and reported higher self-esteem in males (Serin ve Öztürk, 2007).

According to the results of the study it appeared that spending time in physical activities resulted in higher self-esteem. This means, children practicing physical activities feel better about their abilities related to sports, which is positively associated with self-esteem. (Slutzky & Simpkins, 2009).

CONCLUSION
In the light of the results from this study, it can be concluded that physical activities is beneficial for children who live in orphanage. People living without their parents suffer from lack of love and care. Absence of satisfying such needs might results in psychological depression and problems. These children are often neglected and don’t have families that motivate, care for and give attention to them. In order to live in a healthy and happy society, every individual should be given proper attention. Most especially, children like the participants of this study are the ones who need this attention most. Practicing physical activities results in higher self-esteem and lower anxiety in children of our study and we believe that participating in physical activities will help children living without their parents to be strong, happy healthy and successful in their future.

Copyright 2010 | Faculty of physical education and sport, Tuzla University |

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