Adult Attachment Styles of Adults Who Were Raised in Children’s Homes in Kenya

Abstract

The type of care given during childhood has an impact on beliefs, attitudes, and expectations of future relationships. Being raised in a children’s home or other institutionalised care has been seen to increase the risk for emotional, cognitive, developmental and attachment disorders. Attachment styles are ways in which individuals emotionally connect or relate to others. The attachment style can either be secure, which is considered healthy or insecure which is considered unhealthy. The objective of this study was to find out the adult attachment styles among adults who were raised in children’s homes in Kenya. The study adopted the descriptive survey design, and 294 respondents were sampled via census approach. The questionnaire was used for data collection. The standardised revised Adult Attachment Scale was used to measure adult attachment styles. The results of the study showed that the anxious attachment style was the highest adult attachment style among the care leavers (M = 16.09, SD = 6.24), the secure attachment style (M = 15.90, SD = 4.91) and lastly, avoidant attachment (M = 12.63, SD = 4.14). On each of the attachment style domains, 42.9% had moderate secure attachment 78. % low avoidant attachment and 15.6% had a high anxious attachment style. Based on the findings, it is recommended that organisations supporting care leavers should facilitate periodic workshops on the impact of adult attachment style on care leavers in order to create awareness and provide support