Impact of Divorce on Children Wellbeing

Divorce influences well-being; many individuals experience depression, loneliness and isolation, self-esteem lowering, or other psychological issues. Two of the recent issues concerning communities are the higher rate of broken homes and aggressive behavior of children and adolescents. Between 2004 and 2014 there was one divorce for every five Iraqi marriages. Objectives: To assess the influence of divorce on children behavior. Materials and methods: A cross sectional study was carried out at Supreme Judicial Council, Personal Status Courts of Al-Karkh and Al-Bayaa, Baghdad- Iraq from 1st of July 2021 to 30th of November 2021. A total of 92 children were included in the study their age ranged 6-11 years, giving male to female ratio of 1.25:1. An interview was done with child’s custodial parent in the court. Questionnaire of 2 parts: Sociodemographic features and Behavior Problems Index (BPI). Chi square test (fisher’s exact test) was done. P < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Success rate was 53.3%, failure rate was 31.5%, while 15.2% were drop out of school. There were 37 (40%) children with low behavior problems and 55 (60%) children with high behavior problems. There were significant differences between high behavioral problems and children of second grade, poor school achievement, and children with custodial father, P<0.05. Conclusions: High prevalence of behavior disturbance was observed among children of divorced parent