Self- esteem, mindfulness and quality of romantic relationships among female students at Makerere University

Abstract

There is growing evidence of poor quality of romantic relationships as observed by increase in divorce and separations reported in recent years. Therefore, this study was conducted with the purpose of establishing the relationship between self-esteem, mindfulness and quality of romantic relationships and the best predictor of quality of romantic relationships among female students of Makerere University. The study involved 201 female students aged 24 to 45 years who were purposively sampled. Self-administered questionnaires were used during data collection. Rosenberg-scale measured self-esteem, five facet mindful questionnaire short version measured mindfulness and relationship assessment scale measured quality of relationship. Data was analyzed using SPSS V25 Pearson’s correlations co-efficient was used to find the relationships between variables. Results revealed a statistical significance between mindfulness and quality of romantic relationship (r = 0.235, p = 0.012), no statistical significance between self-esteem and quality of romantic relationship (r = -0.56, p = 0.522) and no statistical significance between self-esteem and mindfulness (r = -0.13, p = 0.066). Duration in a relationship was the best predictor of quality of romantic relationship compared to mindfulness. Therefore, the study recommends that relationship counselors and therapists develop techniques on mindfulness and identify ways of helping their clients sustain their romantic relationship. Future research should focus on the different entities of romantic relationships and how these are individually affected by the different techniques of mindfulness and duration in a relationship as mindfulness and duration in a romantic relation was found to predict quality of romantic relationship as a whole entity.