Influence of anxiety and depression on quality of life among prison inmates in Ilorin, Nigeria

This study investigated the influence of anxiety and depression on quality of life among prison inmates in Nigeria. The independent variables are depression and anxiety while the dependent variable is quality of life. The expost facto research design was utilized. Three hundred and nine (309) inmates were randomly selected for the study, males constituting 307(98.4%) and 2(0.6%) females. Two hundred and thirty-four (75.7%) were married, forty (12.9%) were single and thirty-five (11.3%) were divorced. Self-Rating Depression Scale developed by Zung, Richards, and Short (1965) and Hamilton (1959)’s Anxiety Rating Scale were used to assess the level of depression and anxiety respectively while the Quality of life Scale of Burckhardt & Anderson (2003), was employed to assess participants’ quality of life. From the results, participants with high socioeconomic status scored significantly higher on quality of life than those with low socioeconomic status among prison inmates (t (307) = 5.687; p < .01). Inmates with low depression scored significantly higher on quality of life than those with high level of depression (t (307) =-9.931; p < .01). Individuals with high anxiety scored significantly lower on quality of life than those with low anxiety (t (307) =-10.336; p < .01). Also, marital status, socio-economic status, duration of incarceration and depression jointly predicted quality of life of inmates (R = .433; R2 =.187; F (4,304) = 17.537; p < .01). In conclusion, prison authorities should create a policy where intermittent assessment is conducted on individual inmates and those who exhibit symptoms be referred for intervention.