The Identification of the Consequences of Parents' Divorce on Children: A Qualitative Study

Divorce is a social problem that has important individual and social consequences. Children are among the susceptible groups that are seriously affected by divorce. Aiming to identify the consequences of parents' divorce on children, this qualitative research was done through the Interpretative -phenomenological method. The participants of this study were chosen among the senior high school students of Tehran whose parents had got divorced at least two years before this research started. The purposive sampling was done with 13 participants. The semi-structured interview was the method used in this study and the procedures of the interview and data analysis continued up to reaching the theoretical saturation point. Data was codified and analyzed through the Dickelman Method. The results of the analysis of the interviews led to the elicitation of 24 concepts and 7 categories. According to these results, the categories include insecurity in social transactions, economic problems, structural family problems, developmental problems, depression syndrome, ineffective patterns of adaptation and educational problems that were identified as the consequences of parents' divorce on children.