Randomized controlled trial study of the effects of an online divorce platform on anxiety, depression, and somatization.

Abstract

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 volunarity 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.

A Randomised Controlled Trial Study of the Effects of a Digital Divorce Platform on Mental and Physical Health

“…Given that other papers have reported CAD program effects on outcomes such as stress, anxiety, depression, somatisation, and hostility (Cipric et al, 2020Øverup et al, 2020), the current findings further speak to the breadth of the effects of the CAD program and highlight its potential public health significance. Importantly, the results for mental health in this study are on par with those previously reported for more specific mental health outcomes such as depression or anxiety (Hald et al, 2020). Further, when these more specific mental health outcomes were controlled for in this study, the treatment effects for mental health were still evident.…”

“…The decline may be due to an adverse time effect of mental health on physical health whereby reduced mental health increasingly adversely affects physical health over time. In this regard, although we found that mental health increased over time in our study in the control group also, mental health more generally has still consistently been found to be poorer among divorcees than comparable norm groups both immediately following divorce and at 1-year assessments from baseline (see also Cipric et al, 2020;Hald et al, 2020). While we find little reason to think that this may be different in the current study, we encourage future studies in the area to allow for designs investigating this hypothesis.…”

When Love Hurts – Mental and Physical Health Among Recently Divorced Danes

“…The results for mental health corroborate existing research in the field and, notably, the effect sizes here were large, which may mainly reflect the timing of the collection of baseline data. With the unique opportunity to collect data very close to the juridical divorce (on average less than five days from juridical divorce) and the fact that the majority of the sample divorced without any prior separation period, data may have been less subject to a "time heals effect" (Hald et al, 2020a). Following Amato (2000) DSR, this means that time has not yet had a chance to mitigate the adverse effects of the divorce.…”

“…Cooperation after Divorce covers three main areas: (1) the divorce, (2) children, and (3) cooperation following divorce, employing 17 learning modules delivered through an online platform. This paper reports only the baseline results of the study, therefore, please also see Hald et al (2020a) for a more thorough description of the CAD platform. The letter also described the procedure for participation, which consisted of clicking on a web-link in the invitation letter, provide informed consent, and respond to the baseline questionnaire anonymously.…”

“…This means that divorce studies able to employ "real-time" research are scarce and there has been a call for such studies (e.g., Thuen, 2001;Cipric et al, 2020). The concept of "real-time" research usually refers to the collection of data among divorcees with little or no separation periods before formal juridical divorce (Hald et al, 2020a). When studying health effects of divorce, this may be especially important since many health outcomes related to divorce may be sensitive to a "time heals effect, " whereby negative effects of divorce naturally decline over time (Amato, 2010;Sander et al, 2020).…”