PARENTAL DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES AS PREDICTORS OF PUPILS WELLNESS IN ILORIN SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, KWARA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Wellness is an important way to express the broadest perspective on all aspects of personal wellbeing with the crossover between physical and mental wellbeing being clearly recognized by the majority of respondents. The study aimed to investigate whether parental level of education; parental occupation; and parental marital status are predictors of wellness of pupils in Ilorin South Local Government Area. A descriptive research of survey type was adopted for this study. The population of this study comprised of 79,645 primary school pupils in Ilorin South LGA, Kwara State. A multistage sampling procedure of systematic sampling, simple random, proportionate and purposive sampling techniques was used to select 400 respondents. The instrument used for data collection was a researcher-developed questionnaire which was validated and tested for reliability using split-half method and Spearman Brown Prophecy formula yielding a coefficient of 0.84. Inferential statistics of linear regression was used to test the postulated hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study were that parental level of education significantly predicted while parental occupation and parental marital status do not significantly predict wellness of pupil. Therefore, parental level of education is important integral predictor to the wellness of pupils in Ilorin South LGA. The study recommends that parents who are illiterate should be advised and encouraged to attend adult education and health education should be included into adult education programme, this could bridge knowledge gaps for less-educated parents by equipping them with the tools to improve their children’s health outcome.