The Impact of Combat Injury and Trauma on Marital Relationships
Abstract
Background: Military couples have unique relationships and face many external stressors including periods of separation, deployments, and sometimes combat injuries. Combat injuries incurred during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF) can be severe with treatment oftentimes requiring years of rehabilitation. Service members and their spouses also experience symptoms of posttraumatic stress and depression more so than civilian counterparts. Combat physical injuries and mental health symptoms can have a profound impact on the marital relationship such as increased distress, change in household responsibilities, feelings of isolation, reduced satisfaction, deceased sexual drive, and interpersonal conflicts or miscommunication. Objective: The present study evaluated the effects of service members physical injury and service members and spouses mental health symptoms on dyadic adjustment and intimate safety (i.e., the individuals comfort level interacting with their spouse). Methods: The current study is a secondary analysis of previously collected data from 38couples recruited for a military family intervention study (Families Overcoming Combat Under Stress Combat Injury; FOCUS-CI). Service members and spouses were individually administered measures of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PCL-C) and depression (BSI Depression scale) as well as measures of marital functioning (RDAS and ISQ). Clinicians also rated service members physical injury severity (ISS).Results: Overall, results of the current study indicated that spouses posttraumatic stress symptoms and service members depression symptoms were consistently predictive of intimate safety and dyadic adjustment (p < 0.05). Physical injury severity did not predict a linear relation with dyadic adjustment (p = 0.33), but did predict categorization into dyadic adjustment group (p = 0.05).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 12, 2017
- Accession Number
- AD1128447
Entities
People
- Amy K. Lee
Organizations
- Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences