Predictors of behavioral and emotional issues in children involved in custody disputes: A cross sectional study in urban Bengaluru

Background: The increasing rates of divorce in urban India has led to the subsequent parental battle for the child's custody. This paper discusses the behavioral and emotional issues of these children in relation to their psychosocial environmental factors and other relevant socio-demographic variables. Methods: We used samples from parent interviews concerning 52 children aged 7-17-years-old, involved in child custody cases in the Family court of urban Bengaluru. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire was used to measure response variables of behavioral and emotional issues in these children. Predictor models of quantile and multiple linear regression were used to assess the influence of psychosocial environmental factors and sociodemographic variables on the response variables. Results: The predictor models revealed that risk of child suffering emotional and behavioral issues increased with factors such as excessive parental control, change of academic environment, general unrest at school, frequency of child's court visit, child's visitation of non-custodian parent on occasions and vacations, and negatively altered family relationship. The model however intriguingly showed that residing in nuclear household rather than with their grandparents in a non-nuclear household, decreased the risk of mental health issues in these children. Conclusions: This study is a novel attempt to understand the influence of the psychosocial issues on the child's mental health in the context of custody cases in India. Despite the minimum sample size, the findings imply that family-based intervention is the need of the hour in these cases. The implications for clinical practice and research are discussed.