Deployment of personnel to military operations: impact on mental health and social functioning

Impact of life-threatening military incidents during deployments abroad on the relationships between military personnel and their families

Introduction

The influence of deployments on family relationships has hardly been investigated. Following a recently proposed new research strategy, military personnel with and without deployment-related life-threatening military incidents during deployment were compared. The hypothesis was that partner and family relationships of military personnel who experienced such an event would deteriorate more.

Methods

This study included N = 255 military personnel who had a romantic partner (n = 78 of them had children) when deployed to Afghanistan. Of these, n = 68 military personnel experienced a deployment-related critical event during the deployment, n = 187 did not. Partnership quality was assessed using a semi-structured pre- and post-deployment interview.

Results

The partner relationships of military personnel who experienced a deployment-related life-threatening military incident during deployment broke up significantly more often. The partner relationships of all military personnel deteriorated significantly, with greater deterioration after deployment in the group who faced such incidents. These results were independent of age, rank or number of previous deployments. In addition, there was a significant deterioration in the relationships between all military personnel and their children with greater deterioration after deployment in the group who faced such incidents.

Conclusion

Life-threatening military incidents during a deployment abroad appear to have a considerable influence on the quality and stability of the partner and family relationships of military personnel. These findings can be used to inform the development of specific pre- and post-deployment measures and training.

The mental health of non-commissioned soldiers deployed to Boko-Haram zones in Nigeria: Examining the roles of rank and other armed service characteristics

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

This study examined the roles of rank and its interaction with armed service characteristics, including combat exposure, frequency of deployments, and length of service on psychological distress among non-commissioned military officers (NCOs).

METHODS

A cross-sectional sample of 256 NCOs (Meanage = 34.10 ± 7.33) of the Nigerian Army deployed to fight Boko Haram in North-East, Nigeria, participated in the study. Data were collected using self-report instruments and analyzed using multiple linear regression.

RESULTS

The ranks of corporal and lance corporal/private (LCP) were associated with greater psychological distress than the sergeants. However, corporals had higher psychological distress than sergeants and LCPs. Rank accounted for almost twice the variances in psychological distress more than other service characteristics. LCPs had adverse mental health at increased service length than sergeants and corporals. Also, LCPs were more vulnerable to stress at higher combat experience than the corporals.

CONCLUSION

Other factors may be inherent in rank effect on psychological distress beyond combat experience, deployments, and service length. Nevertheless, these service characteristics are important in the rank effect on psychological distress. Identifying relevant combat-related structural problems may additionally explain the association of rank with psychological distress beyond combat experience, deployments, and service length among NCOs.

An exploratory domain analysis of deployment risks and protective features and their association to mental health, cognitive functioning and job performance in military personnel

BACKGROUND

Meta-analyses of military deployment involve the exploration of focused associations between predictors and peri and post-deployment outcomes.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to provide a large-scale and high-level perspective of deployment-related predictors across eight peri and post-deployment outcomes.

DESIGN

Articles reporting effect sizes for associations between deployment-related features and indices of peri and post-deployment outcomes were selected. Three-hundred and fourteen studies (N = 2,045,067) and 1,893 relevant effects were retained. Deployment features were categorized into themes, mapped across outcomes, and integrated into a big-data visualization.

METHODS

Studies of military personnel with deployment experience were included. Extracted studies investigated eight possible outcomes reflecting functioning (e.g., post-traumatic stress, burnout). To allow comparability, effects were transformed into a Fisher's Z. Moderation analyses investigating methodological features were performed.

RESULTS

The strongest correlates across outcomes were emotional (e.g., guilt/shame: Z = 0.59 to 1.21) and cognitive processes (e.g., negative appraisals: Z = -0.54 to 0.26), adequate sleep on deployment (Z = -0.28 to - 0.61), motivation (Z = -0.33 to - 0.71), and use of various coping strategies/recovery strategies (Z = -0.25 to - 0.59).

CONCLUSIONS

Findings pointed to interventions that target coping and recovery strategies, and the monitoring of emotional states and cognitive processes post-deployment that may indicate early risk.

Do children separated from fathers have higher anxiety levels? A comparative analysis

Background

There is limited literature from India on effect of fathers' deployment on the mental health of children. This cross-sectional analytical study investigates the difference in anxiety levels of children whose fathers are deployed in a field location and compares it with children currently located with their fathers.

Method

Data were collected in an army school from 200 children aged 10-17 years with fathers deployed in field locations (n = 99) and fathers currently residing with the children (n = 105) via interviewer administered and self-completed Screen for Child Anxiety-Related Disorders (SCARED) questionnaire.

Results

Anxiety scores were on an average, minimally raised above the cut-off level for children who had fathers deployed. In addition, panic disorder scores were also above the cut-off levels for these children. While scores were normal in all other domain, they were higher than that for children residing with their fathers, although the difference was not significant. Girls with fathers deployed had scores higher than cut-off scores for domains such as panic, separation anxiety and school avoidance, while boys had scores higher than cut-off scores only for panic disorders. However, the girls had significantly higher scores than boys in all domains. Girls in both groups (with and without father deployed) had higher scores than cut-off scores for panic disorders.

Conclusion

Anxiety levels in children were not found to be unduly affected by the deployment of fathers. But girls were found to have clinically relevant panic disorder, school avoidance and separation anxiety scores as compared with boys in the similar situation of parental separation.