Larc's Survey Results Part One

by larc 6 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  larc

  Below are the basic statistics for the survery I conducted. This is based on a sample of 75 people. First of all, I obtained statistics for the first half of the sample and compared it to the statistics for the total sample. This helped determine if the sample size was large enough. The results were essentially the same for the smaller sample as it was for the total sample. Therefore, the total sample can be considered reliable as a sample of people who post here. Although the analysis is done. Posters can still provide their information if they want. If I get 20 or more new respondents, I will reanalyze the data. Here are the basic results: 1. Age - average = 39, range: 18 - 64. 2. Years a JW: average = 22, range: 3 - 54. 3. Years out: 6, range 0 - 30. 4a & 5a.. % Depressed: 70% then, 30% now. 4b & 5b. % low self esteem: 81% then, 43% now. 4c & 5c. % anxious: 81% then, 38% now 4d & 5d. % pyschosis: 8% then, 3% now. Happiness today. average = 4.6 - much more happy. It is clear that symptoms are less than they were as a JW. On average about a 50% - 60% improvement. I also added the four symptoms. This gives a score ranging from 0 to 4. The average score as a JW was 4.6. The average today was 2.4. Again, about a 50% improvement. In Part 2, I will present the correlational results. This will take a little time, as I need to determine the possible reasons for the correlations.

  Thank you all for your participation.

  Larc.

  Edited by - larc on 20 October 2002 10:44:31
• 

  Amazing

  Larc: This is fascinating but not surprising. The last item about being heppier expressed as 4.6 is confusing. Can you restate that as a percentage? Thanks
• 

  Kenneson

  Larc,

  And thank you for conducting the survey, analyzing the finds, and reporting it back to us. You are to be highly commended for your hard work.
• 

  larc

  Amazing, my wife said that last point was confusing as well. So here is a clarification. The rating of happiness was on a five point scale. Four was described as "somewhat more happy" and five was described as "much more happy.". Over 90% of those who responded gave a rating of a four or a five, and most were at five. Even those who still had several symptoms often rated themselves as much more happy. I hope that helps. If not, I will give it another try.
• 

  larc

  jj, you misread this, so let me try to explain this again. The rating scale reads as follows: 1. much less happy today, 2.somewhat less happy, 3.about the same, 4. somewhat more happy, 5. much more happy. Almost everyone rated a 4 or 5 and most rated themselves as a 5 - much more happy today than they were as a JW. This included many people who still had symptoms. Even with the symptoms, they are much more happy today.
• 

  wednesday

  Also, if a person is dealing with issues in their life that are really unrelated to JW-perhaps incest, inherited depression, and the resulting problems of low self esteem-well leaving the org. may help but would not clear up those problems. So in or out of rog a person can suffer form depression, bipolar, and realted mental illness.Many people other then jw had abuse in childhood. abuse takes its tole aso a person can still be depressed even out of org.
• 

  larc

  Wednesday, of course you are right. In order to see the net effect of the JW experience, it would be necessary to have a sample of people who have never been witness answer the four questions on their present day symptoms. I don't think the rates would be as high as our value of 30%, but I don't know that.