Understanding the Impact of Having a Military Father with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on Adolescent Children

Abstract

The primary objective of the study is to understand the impact of having a military father on adolescent children. We will examine the influence of paternal PTSD on adolescent childrens emotional wellbeing and behavior and investigate whether adolescents whose fathers have PTSD experience a higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders, as measured by the Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA), compared to those whose fathers do not have PTSD. We will also examine the influence paternal PTSD has on parentchild communication, family dynamics and functioning. In families where the father has PTSD, we will look at the quality of the relationship (as measured by the Five Minute Speech Sample and Hot Topics paradigms) and check for impaired family dynamics and functioning as measured by the Family Assessment Device (FAD) compared to families where the father does not have PTSD. Initial analyses have shown a moderately high level of adolescent mental health problems (approximately 30%),30% of families with poor functioning and 11% of fathers with high levels of expressed emotion. Secondary aims are 1) examine the effect of specific symptoms of PTSD (avoidance, anger/hostility/emotional numbing) on adolescent emotional wellbeing2) develop digital techniques to identify emotional wellbeing in audio-visual data. We believe that adolescents of fathers with prominent anger/hostility symptoms will experience a higher prevalence of oppositional deficient/conduct disorder (as measured by the DAWBA) compared to those whose fathers do not have these PTSD symptoms; adolescents of fathers with prominent avoidance/numbing symptoms will experience a higher prevalence of depressive disorders (as measured by the DAWBA) compared those whose fathers do not have these PTSD symptoms. Further, we believe it is possible to identify emotional wellbeing identifiers in the audio-visual data collected during the study.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2017
Accession Number
AD1042636

Entities

People

  • Nicola Fear

Organizations

  • University of London

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Anxiety Disorders
  • Department Of Veterans Affairs
  • Depression
  • Diseases And Disorders
  • Dynamics
  • Expressed Emotion
  • Families (Human)
  • Health
  • Health Care
  • Health Services
  • Hostility
  • Medical Personnel
  • Mental Health
  • Military Families
  • Natural Language Processing
  • Psychiatry
  • Traumatic Stress Disorder

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Psychological Intervention/Treatment for Stress, Anxiety, PTSD, and Related Emotional and Cognitive Health Symptoms.
  • Rehabilitation and Prosthetic Care for Military Service Members and Veterans with Limb Loss or Disability.