Abstract
Objective: The children’s ability to cope with events depends on their cognitive and emotional development and the reactions of their families to the environment. For healthy emotional and psychosocial development, age specific developmental crises and external events such as divorce should be successfully overcome. Families can apply to child and adolescent psychiatry to get suggestions in accordance with life events or developmental issues. In this study, the characteristics of the patients who applied for counselling were evaluated.
Material and Methods: The data of 33 patients who applied to Kırıkkale University Child and Adolescent Psychiatry outpatient clinic between May 2017 and March 2018 were analyzed retrospectively.
Results: It was found that 33.3% (n: 11) of the patients were male and the mean age was 9.21±3.90 years (minimum: 1.24 years, maximum: 15.52 years). Most of them were the first child (51.5%, n:17), followed by the second (27.3%, n:9), and the third child (6.1%, n:2). The most common reasons were assessment for problems due to developmental period characteristic crisis (48.6%, n:18) and divorce (37.1%, n:13). Communication and attitude problems within the family were related to separation-individualization, autonomy, boundaries and identity development.
Conclusion: The dominance of girls may be related to the design of the study as issues related to any psychopathologies were excluded. Independent from gender, children's responses to divorce depend on the events before, during and after the divorce. Resources, centers and trainings should be planned for families to have access to the right information in terms of protective mental health.