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The purpose of this study was to explore the question: Is a service member's post-deployment marital satisfaction correlated with frequency and mode of communication during deployment? This study used an anonymous exploratory design with a sample of 119 Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) or Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) married veterans. Service members who communicated daily during deployment with their spouses had higher marital satisfaction scores than those who communicated less than once per week. Additionally, participants who used US mail had the highest marital satisfaction scores compared to telephone and internet-based communication. This study expands the overwhelmingly qualitative current literature to include quantitative analysis of this topic. This study also depicts the veterans' experiences since many of the previous studies of this topic used samples of spouses.In the present wars, Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), military personnel have the most modern forms of communication at their fingertips. Whereas in previous wars US mail was the only mode of communication, service members now can communicate with their loved ones over such media as telephone, email, instant messenger/message board, video, and webcam (Merolla, 2010), increasing frequency and immediacy of communication. Access to much of the modes of Ponder, Aguirre/INTERNET-BASED SPOUSAL COMMUNICATION DURING DEPLOYMENT 217 communication is provided by the military with non-profits assisting with items such as telephone calling cards and cell phones. Little is known about the impact that these additional communication modes have on the marital relationship after deployment. The purpose of the current study is to determine if a service member's post-deployment marital satisfaction is correlated with the frequency and mode of communication during deployment. Theoretical FrameworkMany theories exist about marital satisfaction covering a broad spectrum of aspects that impact satisfaction including employment, communication, adoption, and stress. For the purposes of this study, the two theories discussed are related to stressful events and are focused on the uniqueness of the military couples' experiences. A long-standing theory of marital satisfaction in the face of life-stressors is Hill's (1958) ABC-X Model in which he attempted to address how (A) an event or stressor and (B) the family's resources or strengths led to (C) how the family attached meaning to the event and whether they enter or avert (X) crisis. This theory has been thoroughly tested and revised (e.g., Boss, 2002;Lavee, McCubbin, & Patterson, 1985;McCubbin & McCubbin, 1991) with more recent work focusing on the theory's application to the military marriage. Most recently, Boss (2002) expanded on the ABC-X Model by proposing internal and external contexts. The internal context includes things the family has control over and can change such as the structural, psychological, and philosophical domains. The external context includes things the famil...

Mental health professionals working with first responders (law enforcement officers [LEOs], firefighters [FFs], and emergency medical technicians [EMTs]) should target affective depression over somatic depression symptoms early in treatment if they want to buffer against suicidality.

Objective: To identify the predictors of suicide for firefighters (FFs), emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and law enforcement officers (LEOs). Methods: We used baseline data from FFs/EMTs (n = 69) and LEOs (n = 81) to investigate the unique predictors for both first-responder subtypes. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis on validated assessments of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Measures of attachment, resilience, PTSD, depression, generalized anxiety, trauma history, and substance use were the independent variables in two backward stepwise regressions predicting suicide. Results: Substance use and somatic depression were significant predictors for LEOs, whereas affective depression, anhedonia, externalizing behaviors, trauma history, and generalized anxiety were significant predictors for FFs/EMTs. Limitations: These data are cross-sectional and should be modeled longitudinally over the course of treatment. Conclusion: Separate constructs influence suicide for LEOs and FFs/EMTs.