Items filtered by date: September 2020

Deployment has well documented psychological consequences for military personnel. To fully understand the human cost of war, the psychosocial impact of separation and homecoming of military personnel on their families must also be considered. Recent arduous confl icts in Iraq and Afghanistan make understanding the impact of war on spouses topical and pertinent. Widespread psychological morbidity and social dysfunction have been reported in spouses of military personnel who have been deployed to combat zones such as Vietnam, with diffi culties most acute for spouses of military personnel with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A review of the literature published between 2001 and 2010 assessing the impact of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan on spouses of military personnel was conducted. A total of 14 US-based studies were identifi ed which examined psychological morbidity, help seeking, marital dysfunction and stress in spouses. Longer deployments, deployment extensions and PTSD in military personnel were found to be associated with psychological problems for the spouse. Methodological differences in the studies limit direct comparisons. Recommendations for future research are outlined. The needs of spouses of military personnel remain an important issue with implications for service provision and occupational capability of both partners.

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This article addresses conceptual and theoretical issues concerning how the duration of deployment to a combat theater of operations may impact the mental health of deployed troops. A core principle of occupational medicine, critical to this aim, is to identify hazardous exposures in the workplace and defi ne levels of acceptable exposure to those hazards. The known relationship between combat exposure and combat stress reactions, and the long-term risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is well established. However, the critical issue of the duration of exposure and its impact on the delayed emergence of symptoms has not been analyzed. To date, the literature has not considered the underlying mechanisms that might mediate the adverse effects of duration of deployment in relation to PTSD.

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