Military service absences and family members' mental health: A timeline followback assessment

Parental conscription and cumulative adverse experiences in war-affected children and adolescents and their impact on mental health: a comment following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022

BACKGROUND

With Russia's invasion of the Ukraine on February 2022, Ukrainian children and adolescents have been exposed to several stressful life events. In addition to the confrontation with war, flight and parent-child separation due to flight and forced displacement, the majority underwent another challenge at the initial phase of the war: the fatherly separation due to conscription.

MAIN BODY

In the literature, the negative effects of exposure to war and flight/refuge, parent-child separation due to flight or forced displacement and parental deployment are well established. In the context of self-experienced war, the effects of parent-child separation caused by compulsory military service have not yet been sufficiently taken into account. However, the findings of the literature on the impact of these events on the mental health of children and adolescents show that they are at high risk for developing numerous psychological and behavioral problems.

CONCLUSION

As children's and adolescents' mental health might be severely affected by war and its consequences, interventional programs that address the special needs of those children and adolescents are crucial.

The impact of parental military service on child well-being

Introduction: The aim of this review is to evaluate the literature on the association between parental military-related factors and child well-being. Methods: We conducted a literature search for research published from 2000–2017 from NATO and Partnership for Peace (PfP) countries in the English language only. Eligible studies were those that included topics of military personnel and children’s well-being; papers that included child maltreatment/abuse were excluded. Search databases included Embase, Medline, PsycINFO, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and PubMed. Results: Thirty-six predominantly United States (US)-based studies were included in the review: 27 of cross-sectional study design, 4 longitudinal, and 5 retrospective cohort studies. Discussion: The parental military-specific factors that affect child well-being are cumulative deployment months, frequent relocation, and factors related to relocation such as expanded household responsibility, disrupted daily routines, academic interruption, and disruption to social networks. These factors are associated with military children having higher levels of emotional and behavioural difficulties – such as symptoms of depression – than their civilian counterparts. Limitations of the review include the large proportion of studies with a cross-sectional design, as well as studies with small sample sizes. Indications for future research include looking at children from dual military families and the use of longitudinal study designs.

General psychological distress among Japan Self-Defense Forces personnel dispatched on United Nations peacekeeping operations and their spouses

AIM

The importance of family care during international deployment is emphasized within military organizations, but mental health interactions between deployed personnel and their spouses have not yet been assessed. This study addressed this gap by examining couples' mental health throughout a deployment period.

METHODS

The mental health of 324 spousal dyads of Japan Self-Defense Forces personnel dispatched for a half-year United Nations Disengagement Observer Force mission was examined, using longitudinal data derived from a survey at four time points: one-month pre-deployment, initial deployment, middle deployment, and immediately after homecoming. The 30-item General Health Questionnaire was used to evaluate general psychological distress, with high scores (≥7) indicating adverse mental health.

RESULTS

The spouses' general psychological distress was significantly higher compared with the deployed personnel (P < 0.001). The high general psychological distress of personnel was significantly related to that of their spouses (odds ratio = 2.24; 95% confidence interval, 1.32-3.80), and vice versa (odds ratio = 2.38; 95% confidence interval 1.39-4.08).

CONCLUSION

Mental health care will be beneficial for not only deployed personnel but also their spouses.

Stepping Up, Sticking Together: Military Adolescents' Support of Their Civilian Parents and Concurrent Depression Symptoms

The purposes of this study were to assess the ways adolescents in active-duty military families provide emotional and instrumental support to civilian mothers and to investigate the implications of such support for their own symptoms of depression. Eighty adolescents from active-duty military families provided self-report ratings of emotional and instrumental support rendered to their civilian mothers. Mother-adolescent dyads engaged in a 10-min discussion of military experiences, which was coded for adolescents' emotional validation of their mothers. Path analyses showed that adolescents who provided more instrumental support and showed more emotional validation reported fewer symptoms of depression. However, adolescents' instrumental support to the mother was not inversely associated with their depression symptoms when the mothers reported high depression symptoms. Recent military demands did not moderate associations between adolescent support and depression symptoms. In this, the first study to our knowledge assessing youth-to-parent support provision among military adolescents, results suggest that emotional validation and instrumental support given at will by adolescents to their civilian mothers are associated with lower levels of adolescent depressive symptoms. Results also underscore the impact of maternal depression on family processes and emphasize the importance of careful assessment of support processes within military families.