Browsing by Subject "Military spouses"

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Living with the invisibly wounded: how female partners of male OEF/OIF/OND veterans with PTSD understand their experiences
(2015-12) Farmer, Annie Elizabeth; Ainslie, Ricardo C.; Suizzo, Marie-Anne; Reddick, Richard; Hammond, Ryan; Sanchez, Delida
This study builds on the literature demonstrating systemic effects of PTSD on spouses of military veterans. An interpretive phenomenological approach was utilized for interviewing and analyzing data from twelve female partners of veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation New Dawn who have PTSD. Half of these women had begun their relationships prior to the veterans’ deployments and half had met their partners after their military service. Seven themes emerged from the analysis of participants’ narratives that captured the confusion, uncertainty, and emotional distress often central to women’s experiences and highlighted their sense of responsibility to their partners, the challenges with trust and intimacy in their relationships, shifts in their identities, and the strategies they used to cope. Noteworthy was the fact that women’s descriptions of listening to veterans’ trauma disclosures did not support the construct of vicarious traumatization as a primary mechanism to explain participants’ distress. Women’s narratives did lend support to the relevance of the theories of ambiguous loss, caregiver burden, and appraisal theory to understanding the heightened psychological distress and relationship distress in this population.
Military spouses and the deployment cycle : exploring the well-being, protective factors, and personal resources of waiting wives
(2013-05) Faulk, Kathryn Elizabeth; Steinhardt, Mary; Bartholomew, John B; Beretvas, Tasha; Cance, Jessica D; Patall, Erika A
Research suggests that the deployment cycle is associated with decreased psychological well-being in military spouses, yet not all individuals married to military service members experience psychopathology. It may be that spouses who do not experience reduced well-being possess personal resources, such as positive emotions, that protect them against the stresses of military life. The primary purpose of this dissertation was to determine the effect of deployment on the well-being of military spouses and examine whether personal resources protected military spouses and enhanced their wellbeing throughout the deployment cycle. A synthesis of the existing literature was performed in order to determine the direction and magnitude of the effect of deployment on the psychological well-being of military spouses. For the primary analyses, participants were drawn from a convenience sample of military spouses stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. Meta-analysis, hierarchical linear regression, and structural equation modeling were used to test study hypotheses. In the first study, a meta-analytic review, deployment was found to have a moderate effect on psychological well-being, such that spouses experienced greater psychological problems during deployment. Two studies were conducted as part of the primary analyses. In the first, positivity was found to moderate the relationship between stress and depressive symptoms during deployment. Specifically, the relationship between stress and depressive symptoms was stronger for spouses with low levels of positivity. Finally, the third study found that adaptive coping, maladaptive coping, and resilience completely mediated the relationship between positive emotions and depressive symptoms. Of the three mediators, adaptive coping was found to be the most influential. Together, the results of these three studies illuminate the detrimental effect of deployment on the psychological well-being of military spouses, while providing support for the broaden-and-build theory's proposed roles of positive emotions -- broadening, building, and undoing -- in a unique population. Study limitations, implications for military spouses, and suggestions for future directions in research are discussed.
Stressful experiences, coping strategies and predictors of health related outcomes among military spouses
(2007-05) Dimiceli, Erin Elizabeth; Steinhardt, Mary
The purpose of this study was to identify the most stressful experiences of military spouses in the last five years, coping strategies used to deal with these experiences, and whether the coping strategies used were predictive of health-related outcomes. Spouses of soldiers (N=77) in the Army's 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood in Killeen, TX participated in the study. Results revealed that 85% of these spouses identified deployment of soldiers as the most stressful experience encountered, followed by relocation (11%), Sept. 11th (3%), and other (1%). Factor analysis identified 5 coping subscales used to address these stressful experiences: problem-focused, holding on, seeking social support, tension-reduction, and avoidance. Of these 5 subscales, an avoidant coping strategy (B = .46; p<.01) was predictive of greater physical symptoms of illness (R2=.14; p<.05). Further, avoidant coping strategies (B=.46; p<.01) were predictive of a greater number of depressive symptoms, whereas 'holding on' coping strategies (B=-.22; p<.05) were predictive of fewer depressive symptoms (R2=.25; p<.01). Implications for practice and future directions are discussed.