Divorce Is Stressful, But How Stressful? Perceived Stress Among Recently Divorced Danes

ABSTRACT

This study compared recently divorced Dane’s perceived stress scores with normative data of both (1) general and (2) divorced/separated populations, and investigated the predictive power of sociodemographic- and divorce-related variables on perceived stress. A total of 1,856 divorcees responded to the Perceived Stress Scale and related variables. Recent divorcees had significantly higher perceived stress levels than both the general and the divorced/separated populations. Lower age, lower education level, lower-income, infidelity, former spouse divorce initiation, not having a new partner, and higher divorce conflict significantly predicted higher stress levels equally among both male and female participants using structural equation modeling.

KEYWORDS:

• Divorce/separation
• gender & family
• quantitative
• stress

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge that the Egmont Foundation supported the development of the digital platform ‘Cooperation After Divorce,’ the Danish State Administration helped during the data collection process.

Disclosure statement

For due diligence, we would like to declare that the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where the majority of authors work, owns the digital intervention platform while two of the co-authors (Gert Martin Hald and Søren Sander) hold the commercial license rights to the platform through the Company ‘Cooperation after Divorce’ (Samarbejde Efter Skilsmisse ApS).

Compliance with Ethical Standards

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained, and participants were informed about the study, its content, and voluntary of participation. Responses were anonymized and stored in anonymous form on a secure server. The Study was approved by the Danish Data Protection Agency. The study was exempt from further ethical evaluations following the rules and regulations as set forth by the Scientific Ethical Committees of Denmark.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [JMS], upon reasonable request ad.

Research group

The Sexuality and Interpersonal Relationships research group is an interdisciplinary team focusing on topics in the field of sexuality, relationships, and mental health from a public health perspective. The group’s objectives include developing and implementing scalable digital interventions aimed at improving quality of life, mental and physical health, and that have societal impact. Their study “When Marriage Fails” was the first longitudinal RCT of a digital post-divorce intervention (Cooperation after Divorce intervention).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Carlsberg Foundation ‘Distinguished Associate Professor Fellowship’ (last author) under Grant No. CF16-0094.