The Influence of Parental Divorce on Depression Symptoms in Adolescence and Early Adulthood: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Parental divorce, as one of the adverse childhood experiences, will have a negative influence on the mental health of adolescents. This study conducted a meta-analysis of depressive symptoms in children from parental divorce and adolescence and early adulthood. Through a series of meta-analysis to find the correlation between parental divorce and adolescent depression and tested the risk of publication bias. Two subgroup analyses are further studied and evaluated. A total of 9 studies in this trial were included in the meta-analysis (N=2089), and there was a significant correlation between parental divorce and children's depression (SMD=0.26, 95% CI=0.12, 0.40). Adolescent women report more depressive symptoms than men. Based on the experimental results, this study speculates the factors that cause depression in adolescents and early adults due to parental divorce. Depression reports that rely on self-reports is restrictive. This finding supports the theory that parental divorce will produce negative depression for their children. Therefore, children with divorced parents should pay more attention to improving their mental health.

The Experiences of Parental Divorce on the Psychological Well-Being among High School Students

“…According to Olofsson (2019), children who are from divorced families have lower general well-being than those from loving families; they face greater anxiety and depression symptoms, lower self-esteem, and are more stressed out. According to Liu (2022), she holds the idea that parents' divorce is a bad childhood experience, will have a negative impact on children's mental health. The whole study is based on the view that adolescence is an important stage of human development.…”