Risk and Resilience in Deployed Air Force Medical Personnel Study

Abstract

Military medical personnel deployed to war zones are dually burdened with stressors related to providing healthcare and combat and operational experiences. To better understand how different types and levels of stress exposure relate to positive and negative mental health outcomes among military medical personnel, the associations between combat and healthcare stress exposure and posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were examined among 253 Air Force medical personnel recently redeployed from Iraq. Both types of stress exposure were uniquely associated with increased PTSD symptomatology. However, combat exposure was linearly associated with PTSD, suggesting a doseresponse relationship, whereas the relationship between healthcare stress and PTSD was curvilinear. Both forms of stress exposure showed an inverted U-shaped relationship with posttraumatic growth.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 15, 2011
Accession Number
ADA549857

Entities

People

  • Alan L. Peterson
  • Brett T Litz
  • James Mintz
  • Jon Hatch
  • Monty Baker
  • Richard Mcnally
  • William Isler

Organizations

  • University of Texas at San Antonio

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Anxiety Disorders
  • Combat Injuries
  • Depression
  • Health Services
  • Medical Personnel
  • Military Hospitals
  • Military Medicine
  • Patient Care
  • Personnel Management
  • Psychiatry
  • Psychology
  • Surveys
  • Therapy
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Mental Health of Military Veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Risk Factors, Prevalence, Symptoms, and Treatment.
  • Theoretical Analysis.