Effects of military service and deployment on clinical symptomatology: The role of trauma exposure and social support

Abstract

The Marine Resiliency Study-II examined changes in symptomatology across a deployment cycle to Afghanistan. U.S. Servicemembers (N = 1041) received clinical testing at two time points either bracketing a deployment (855) or not (186). Factor analyses were used to generate summary and change scores from Time 1 to Time 2. A between-subject design was used to examine changes across the deployment cycle with deployment (low-trauma, high-trauma, and non-deployed) and social support (low vs. high) as the grouping variables. Insomnia increased post-deployment regardless of deployment trauma (std. effect for high-trauma and low-trauma = 0.39 and 0.26, respectively). Only the high-trauma group showed increased PTSD symptoms and non-perspective-taking (std. effect = 0.40 and 0.30, respectively), while low-trauma showed decreased anxiety symptoms after deployment (std. effect = −0.17). These associations also depend on social support, with std. effects ranging from −0.22 to 0.51. When the groups were compared, the high-trauma deployed group showed significantly worse PTSD and non-perspective-taking than all other groups. Similar to studies in other military divisions, increased clinical symptoms were associated with high deployment stress in active duty Servicemembers, and social support shows promise as a moderator of said association.

Differences between the Canadian military’s Regular and Reserve Forces in perceived need for care, mental health services use and perceived sufficiency of care: a cross-sectional survey

“…Hence, the inability to include the more than 10 000 personnel with an Afghanistan-related deployment who had left service prior to the survey10 means that the present findings exclude the responses from individuals who may have had a mental disorder but had left service. Moreover, social support and social environment were only cursorily controlled for (eg, marital status and financial difficulties as proxies) with our analyses and these factors may have played a role in individuals’ PNC, MHSU and PSC 43 44…”

Assessing Neuronal and Astrocyte Derived Exosomes From Individuals With Mild Traumatic Brain Injury for Markers of Neurodegeneration and Cytotoxic Activity

“…Participants in this study, a subset of MRS-II participants, were all male, with a mean age at pre-deployment of 21.87 (SD = 2.76). On average assessments were given at 4 weeks (SD = 4.9) prior to deployment and again at 22 weeks (SD = 22.4) following deployment (Marine Resiliency Study II; Moore et al, 2017). MRS-II TBI assessment methodology mirrored that of MRS, which assessed life-time head injury (up to a maximum 5) at pre-deployment, and combat-related head injuries, defined as any head injury sustained between the pre-and post-deployment assessments (Yurgil et al, 2014).…”

Enhancing behavioral sleep care with digital technology: study protocol for a hybrid type 3 implementation-effectiveness randomized trial

“…Depending on the measurement method (e.g., self-report, sleep diary, diagnostic interview), insomnia affects between 24 and 90% of ADSMs and veterans who have deployed since 2001 [4][5][6][7]. Insomnia is also prevalent among nondeployed ADSMs [8][9][10].…”

“…Insomnia not only degrades military readiness, but also hinders resilience, quality of life, mood, and overall health [4]. In fact, insomnia is a robust risk factor for poor psychological and physical health outcomes [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], and is often comorbid with psychiatric and medical conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, suicidality, anxiety, alcohol use disorder, hypertension, chronic pain, obesity, and diabetes [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. In the military population, insomnia symptoms have been associated with decreased resilience [15].…”