Fatemeh Zahedi1, Sead Hesam Bostani 1*, Ali Ranjbar1
Increased divorce rates during the recent years has led to an increase in the number of children of divorce whose problems and issues are hidden from many. Of course, for most children, the separation of parents is a dire event. Research conducted in this area indicate that these children face various psychological and social damages during their lives. This study aims to investigate the prevalence of psychological problems in children of divorce in two age groups (10-15 and 15-20) in Zarghan, Iran. The population of the study includes children of divorce in two age groups of 10-15 years and 15-20 years in 2016, Zarghan, Iran which involves 140 children in two groups. Simple random sampling was used to collect data to cover the sample size. One hundred children were selected as the sample. To collect data, the researcher used SCL-90-R questionnaire. Deragotis's psychological symptom questionnaire was used to determine the symptoms of mental health problems in the study. The factors include: physical complaints, obsessive compulsive disorders, interpersonal relationships, depression, anxiety, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, psychosis and mental health (GSI).
The results of the study suggests that children of divorce in Zarghan city, exhibit psychiatric symptoms. In addition, girls suffer from mental health problems more than boys. Our findings show that divorce children, compared to children raised in other families, have lower psychological health indexes in all study aspects. Particularly, the physical complaints, obsessive compulsive disorders, interpersonal relationships, depression, anxiety, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, psychosis and GSI scores were higher for divorce children.
The results also revealed that some factors affect differently based on gender; while anxiety and depression has a greater impact on divorce girls, aggression and delinquency is more dominant in divorce boys than girls.
