Parental divorce: psychosocial well-being mental health and mortality during youth and young adulthood. A longitudinal study of Swedish conscripts

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Abstract
Background: We investigated the association between parental divorce, adolescent well-being and later mental health and mortality in young men. Methods: A national cohort of 47, 033 conscripts was followed up using registers for a period of 18 years. Baseline data were obtained from questionnaires at conscription, including data on social background, well-being, health and the use of alcohol and drugs. These data were matched with the national register of psychiatric care and with the national cause of death register. Results: Parental divorce was more common where less favourable social, behavioural and psychological characteristics were reported. For example, in families where the father frequently consumed alcohol, the odds ratio for parental divorce was 5.6 [95% confidence interval (CI): 5.0–6.2), compared with those families where the father never or rarely consumed any alcohol. In the long-term follow-up the relative risk (RR) of hospitalisation for psychiatric disorders was 1.8 (95% CI: 1.6–2.1) for young men who had divorced parents. The RR was 2.3 (95% CI: 2.0–2.8) for a diagnosis of alcoholism, 1.3 (95% CI: 0.9–1.8) for a diagnosis of schizophrenia and 1.3 (95% CI: 1.1–1.6) for mortality. Conclusions: Several indicators of low levels of well-being at conscription and mental illness, including alcoholism, later in life were found amongst young men with divorced parents. Although the results were adjusted for antecedents and covariate factors in multivariate analyses, some degree of confounding of long-term health effects from factors contributing to divorce cannot be ruled out.

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