Educational Attainment, Country of Residence and Marital Status as Predictors of Women Spiritual Help-Seeking Behavior

Abstract

Literature has consistently revealed across different countries of the world that large proportions of those who attend spiritual houses are women and they attend to seek help on diverse issues. However, it is not known if one’s country of residence, educational attainment and marital status will predict women spiritual help-seeking behavior. The objective of this study was to find out how the variables as indicated above would predict spiritual help-seeking behavior of women in Nigeria, Iran and Cameroon. Using an ex post facto design and multistage sampling, 314 participants that participated in the study were drawn from Nigeria, Iran and Cameroon. Validated scale was used to collect data and the hypothesis tested was accepted. Thus, country of residence and marital status significantly predicted spiritual help-seeking behavior of women, whereas educational attainment was not a significant predictor. Deriving from above, professionals should begin to focus on the development of cross-cultural spiritual therapeutic measures that will address African women’s specific problems as well as considering the level of educational attainment of help-seekers in addressing their problem. A limitation of the study however is the small sample size, which may be addressed in further researches