Supervised by Dr. Roquia Begum and   Hamida Akther Begum

Abstract

Divorce is increasing day by day In Bangladesh. The consequences of divorce have a variety of effects such as economical, social, physical and psychological etc. Generally anxiety, anger, grief, guilt are the common psychological reactions associated with divorce. But the exact nature of the mental health problems of the people undergoing divorce process is unknown In the context of Bangladesh. Moreover knowledge about the factors which lead to marital breakdown In our country may play an important role for preventing relationship breakdown. Women are more vulnerable in case of marital breakdown. Hence, the present study was carried out to assess the mental health problems and factors responsible for divorce of the women undergoing divorce process. The specific objectives of the study were I) to find out whether anxiety, depression and GHQ scores of women vary according to the employment status of women and number of children II) to assess the functional Impairments of the women In divorce process III) to assess the factors responsible for divorce of women undergoing divorce process. Quantitative design and exploratory research design under qualitative methodology were followed In the present study. Fifty five women aged from 20 to 58 years from lower to upper Income group who were undergoing divorce process and taking legal support were selected by purposive sampling technique from Bangladesh National Women’s Lawyers Association (BNWLA) as the sample of the present study. Anxiety Scale (Deeba and Begum, 2004), Depression Scale (Uddin and Rahman, 2005) and the Bengali version of General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12, Ilyas and Aeysha, 2002) were administered to measure the mental health problems of the participants. In the second part, eleven samples were taken randomly from the total sample of fifty five to explore the functional impairments of those women and to find out the factors responsible for divorce by applying in depth interview method. Results were analyzed through quantitative and qualitative technique. From quantitative analysis it was found that overall mental health status of the respondents’ were poor - 83.64% women crossed the cut-off point of Anxiety Scale, 76.36% women crossed the cut-off point of Depression Scale and 76.36% were above in the middle range of GHQ scores. Most of the women in divorce process developed clinically significant psychological problems like profound anxiety, severe depressive symptoms, adjustment problems and aggressiveness. Analysis of Variance indicated that occupation and number of children of women had no significant effect on the anxiety, depression and GHQ scores of the participants. But the mean scores of these three measures for housewives were a little bit higher than that of the employed women. However the mean scores of all of them were much higher compared to the normal range. It has been found that the mean scores of anxiety, general mental health of all these women irrespective of employment status and number of children indicated profound anxiety and lower level of mental health respectively. On the other hand, the mean scores of all women indicated mild level of depression except for those having no children. Women having no children were at the moderate level of depression. In the post hoc analysis - it was found that there were significant interactions between age at marriage and level of income for all three measures i.e. anxiety, depression and overall mental health condition. The results showed that women in divorce process had higher level of anxiety, depression and lower mental health condition except women whose age at marriage was above eighteen years and own monthly income ranged from Tk 10001-above. Respondents with lowest income group were found to have scored higher on anxiety, depression and general emotional disturbance. In post hoc analyses, it was also found that anxiety and depression score varied according to different level of education. The respondents who had poor education scored higher both in anxiety and depression than respondents having higher education. From the qualitative analysis of results it was found that participants were suffering from various types of psychological problems. Extramarital affair, substance abuse, financial problem, physical abuse, abandon, interference from in-laws and others, polygamy, dowry related problems, personality problems, criminal activity and unemployment of husbands are found as the responsible factors for divorce. The present study has some limitations. First, sample size was small to reach at a definite conclusion. Second, the study was restricted to women only and data was collected from one legal help center. Nevertheless, the present study provides a picture of the nature of mental health problems of women undergoing divorce process and also finds out the factors which hamper the marital quality and pave the way for divorce. The study recommended that for the modification and reduction of psychological problems among women undergoing divorce process, psychological services should be provided along with other services.