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Books can be a useful tool for helping children deal with separation and divorce. Practitioners will find that books are available which offer realistic insight into the problems that children experience during family breakdown. These problems are noted, and annotated books on separation and divorce are presented.
Marital separation and divorce are stressful transitions for families. Due to the multitude of stressors imposed, parents and children are at risk for negative emotional, behavioral, and psychological outcomes. Advanced practice nurses are in an excellent position to provide early interventions to separated families that may prevent the need for mental health services that are costly to families and communities. This article discusses the effects of divorce on children and parents and provides guidelines for assessment and intervention with separated families. A description of the Creating Opportunities for Parent Empowerment (COPE) program, a newly developed intervention program for separated parents and their young children, is also included.
There are numerous types of benefits paid under the Social Security programs of the United States, with each type of benefit having its own set of eligibility rules and benefit formula. It is likely that there is an association between the type of benefit a person receives and the economic circumstances of the beneficiary. This article explores that association using records from the Current Population Survey exactly matched to administrative records from the Social Security Administration. Divorced beneficiaries are a particular focus of this article. Type of benefit is found to be a strong predictor of economic well-being. Two large groups of beneficiaries, retired-worker and aged married spouse beneficiaries, are fairly well-off. Other types of beneficiaries tend to resemble the overall U.S. population or are decidedly worse off. Divorced spouse beneficiaries have an unusually high incidence of poverty and an unusually high incidence of serious health problems. A proposal to increase benefits for these beneficiaries is evaluated. Results of the analyses indicate that much of the additional Government expenditures would be received by those with low income.
Previous research shows that the educational performance of children may be impaired when their parents divorce. However, noncustodial fathers' postdivorce behavior, especially compliance with child support orders, can greatly offset educational disadvantages. The present study investigated the impact of fathers' behavior on their children's performance on college entrance examinations (CEEs) in a sample of 231 college students. Results indicated that, in intact families, fathers' ethnicity and income were related to CEE scores. Further, when these students perceived their fathers as encouraging and involved in their education, their scores were higher. For students with divorced parents, however, noncustodial fathers' ethnicity, income, encouragement, involvement, child support compliance, and visitation were not statistically linked to CEE performance. These findings suggest that joint custodial arrangements, which may enhance the social relationships between fathers and their children, may lead to improved educational outcomes.
"This analysis of remarriage among the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study's cohort of high school graduates investigates the relationship between socioeconomic prospects and remarriage after divorce. This article expands on previous efforts by including multiple measures of socioeconomic prospects and considering their importance over an extended time frame. In addition, a comparative approach is taken in this analysis, with the importance of socioeconomic prospects considered for the remarriage of both women and men. Several competing hypotheses are tested, with results indicating that, for women, the appropriate model of remarriage varies with age of separation from the first husband. With few exceptions, socioeconomic prospects are not found to be related to the remarriage of men. The implications of these findings for patterns of poverty among divorced women are considered." This paper was originally presented at the 1995 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America.
In this article we examine changes in the proportion of older widowed and divorced women in England and Wales moving from 'independent' to two kinds of 'supported' household--supported private households and institutions--during the decades 1971-81 and 1981-91. Our main aim was to see whether observed increases in institutionalisation over this period were the result of a decreased propensity to move to the households of relatives. We used the ONS Longitudinal Study, a record linkage study including individual level data from the 1971, 1981 and 1991 censuses of England and Wales. A multinomial logit model was used to investigate the correlates of transitions from independent to supported private households versus institutions among elderly widowed and divorced women. While the overall rate of transitions to join either supported private households or institutions was largely the same in the two decades, the balance between the two shifted markedly in favour of transitions to institutions. In terms of the limited range of covariates it was possible to consider, owner-occupiers were significantly more likely than tenants to move to supported private households than to institutions.
Sexually active divorced and separated women constitute a significant population at risk for sexually transmitted diseases. With components of the Interaction Model of Client Health Behavior (IMCHB) used as the conceptual framework, a convenience sample (N=254) of women--mostly educated, White, and in their 30s (20 to 49 years)--was examined relative to condom use and individual and social context characteristics. To explore the effect of fertility on condom use, the sample was divided into fertile and infertile subsamples. The IMCHB explained 49% of the variance in infrequent condom use by the fertile women (n=93) and 21% of the variance in less frequent condom use by the infertile women (n=161).
This study generated and assessed an empirical taxonomy of symptom profiles or types in a nonclinical population. Three hundred and thirty men and women who recently had separated from their marital partners were interviewed and completed a variety of instruments. Cluster analysis of factors derived from one such instrument, a symptom checklist, yielded a provisional classification of respondents into nine types. The latter were examined for differences in socio-economic characteristics as well as several variables suggested in the literature to predict or help explain symptom formation: Feelings of control, self-concept, social stressors, and current morale. Results indicated three types to be relatively well off despite the potentially stressful conditions inherent in divorce. The Overwhelmed and the Somatic depressives, in contrast, demonstrated multiple signs of dysfunction. The findings indicate the value of applying empirical classification procedures to at-risk populations in the community.
Compared to 88 non-refusers, 12 children who refused post-divorce visits with their noncustodial parents were significantly more likely to be female, to be the oldest child at home, to be in special education, and to have at least one parent with evidence of psychopathology, particularly substance abuse, violence toward spouse, suicidal behavior, or psychosis. Most children in both groups lived primarily with their mothers.
The effectiveness of a primary prevention program for children of divorce is evaluated. Subjects included 82 mother-child pairs. Mothers had been separated for 33 months or less and did not have prior histories of using mental health services. Subjects were assigned to one of four conditions: (a) the Children's Support Group alone (CSG), (b) the CSG and the Single Parents' Support Group (SPSG), (c) the SPSG alone, or (d) a no-treatment control group. Data collected before, after, and 5 months following intervention, were analyzed using analyses of covariance with preintervention scores as covariates and pre-post and post-follow-up difference scores as dependent measures. Children in the CSG-alone condition improved most in self-concept and parents in the SPSG-alone condition improved the most in adjustment. Improvements were either maintained or did not change differentially across groups at follow up. Adaptive social skills of CSG-alone children compared to children in the CSG/SPSG groups showed significant post-to-follow-up improvements.
Examined the relations between support from intimate friends or "chums" and stress, age, and gender in predicting psychological adjustment using a sample of 117 8- to 15-year old children who had experienced parental divorce. Both parents and children provided information on children's adjustment. In predicting children's reports of their adjustment, the direct effect of chum support was found to be moderated by children's age. In predicting parental reports of children's adjustment, no significant main effects or interaction effects occurred. The findings are discussed with attention to the divergent perspectives of different reporters.
The population in the Nordic countries is relatively homogenous. In 178 Norwegian patients subjected to colectomy for ulcerative colitis the frequencies of suicide, divorce, psychosis, and hospitalization for mental disorders, and consumption of psychotropic drugs, did not differ significantly from corresponding frequencies in the general population.
A stratified sample of 31 French-Canadian and 33 English-Canadian separated or divorced (S/D) mothers and matched married controls were identified by telephone in four high-income census tracts of Montreal. The 128 women were home-interviewed by questionnaire which included extensive sections on health, stress and life satisfaction. It was predicted that modern S/D women with children would be better off as regards satisfaction, stress and health than pre-women's liberation era women, and that they would be as well or better off than the married controls. These hypotheses were supported only in part. The S/D were significantly worse off than the married in four areas (general life satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, self-esteem and use of professional therapists) and on almost all other health-stress measures, there were trends favouring the married. There were no significant differences or no trends favouring the S/D. Nonetheless, the S/D did appear to be considerably better off when compared with the picture of the S/D in the earlier literature. The greater frequency of depressions and greater use of therapists by the English-Canadian women was thought to reflect their weaker network of supportive relatives as well as the impact of recent political changes in Quebec.
Socioeconomic data are frequently included in health studies as indicators of social class. These data are used to measure the relationship between the behavior patterns, lifestyles and environments assumed to be associated with class and the topic under study. However, formulas currently used to calculate SES obscure rather than identify class position. This paper examines the Hollingshead SES score, comparing its view of the economic system with recent studies of the labor hierarchy of the United States. An alternative method for analysis and a socioeconomic scaling system which approximates class divisions within the United States today is then offered. A test case, using data from a study on divorcing families, is also presented to illustrate the kinds of information available through the alternative scaling system and show a comparison with the Hollingshead scale.
The purpose of this study was to understand divorced and separated women's experience of negotiating human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) preventive behaviors when resuming sexual activity following long-term monogamous relationships. A little-studied but large group, these women are at risk for sexually transmitted diseases, have low rates of protective behaviors, and have not been targeted for prevention education. Seven women entering a sexual milieu altered by the presence of HIV after at least a 10-year period of monogamy comprised the sample. A descriptive phenomenologic methodology incorporating Colaizzi's method for data analysis revealed four themes: (a) keeping the magic, (b) Am I an adolescent or an adult? (c) holding on to self, and (d) gender perspectives. These women's words help to illuminate their issues regarding HIV prevention, guiding further nursing research and HIV preventive educational interventions.
Program by risk interactions were assessed to evaluate whether the long-term effects of two preventive interventions for children from divorced families were moderated by baseline levels of risk. Six-year prospective relations between childhood (ages 9-12) and adolescence (ages 15-19) were examined in 68 children who comprised the control group of a randomized trial. Analyses indicated that two childhood variables predicted multiple adolescent outcomes: environmental stressors and externalizing problems. A risk index composed of these 2 variables was highly predictive of internalizing and externalizing problems, competence, substance use, and mental disorder 6 years later. Analyses of the full sample (N = 218) indicated that program effects were greater for children with higher risk scores and that the programs attenuated the relation between risk and adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems, competence, and mental disorder.
This study examined two contrasting views of how parental marital status relates to the long-term adjustment of children. The physical wholeness position views divorce and subsequent remarriage and the blending of families as salient explanatory variables that adversely affect children's later adjustment through the physical dissolution of the nuclear family; the psychological wholeness position views perceived current family conflict as the critical variable that influences adjustment, regardless of parental marital status. Results of analyses on White adolescents (N = 917) fail to support the physical wholeness position; rather, results support the psychological wholeness position. Adolescents' adjustment was related to level of perceived family conflict.
Neuroendocrine function, assessed in 90 couples during their first year of marriage (Time 1), was related to marital dissolution and satisfaction 10 years later. Compared to those who remained married, epinephrine levels of divorced couples were 34% higher during a Time 1 conflict discussion, 22% higher throughout the day, and both epinephrine and norepinephrine were 16% higher at night. Among couples who were still married, Time 1 conflict ACTH levels were twice as high among women whose marriages were troubled 10 years later than among women whose marriages were untroubled. Couples whose marriages were troubled at follow-up produced 34% more norepinephrine during conflict, 24% more norepinephrine during the daytime, and 17% more during nighttime hours at Time 1 than the untroubled.