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Study: Kids Of Divorce Have Greater Lifetime Risk For Stroke

Researchers are still trying to determine what the effects of divorce on children are, and whether those effects are lessening as divorce becomes less stigmatized. Most recently a study was released that showed that children of divorce are twice as likely to suffer from a stroke during their lifetime.

The study was conducted at the University of Toronto, which studied 13,000 people, ten percent of which had experienced a parental divorce when they were children. Two percent of participants had suffered a stroke. The results were presented formally at the Gerontological Society of America's annual meeting.

The researchers who conducted the study say that preliminary results may suggest that children who went through divorce may have difficult dealing with stress throughout the rest of their lives. However, they also pointed out that people who are having strokes now experienced divorces in the 1930s and 1940s, a time when divorce was much rarer and much different than it is today. Children were not likely to get therapy or support back then, and many divorces during that time were also connected with domestic violence or other extreme conditions.

Critics of the study say that the research should be replicated several times in order to confirm the results. Other critics say that that a study also needs to be conducted regarding the rate of strokes among people who grew up in households with unhappily married parents. However, all researchers agree that the study starts an important conversation on the psychological affects of divorce on children and raises new questions regarding divorce and child development to be studied in the future.

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