Military youth and the deployment cycle: Emotional health consequences and recommendations for intervention.

Abstract

The United States military force includes over 2.2 million volunteer service members. Three out of five service members who are deployed or are preparing for deployment have spouses and/or children. Stressors associated with the deployment cycle can lead to depression, anxiety, and behavior problems in children, as well as psychological distress in the military spouse. Further, the emotional and behavioral health of family members can affect the psychological functioning of the military service member during the deployment and re-integration periods. Despite widespread acknowledgement of the need for emotional and behavioral health services for youth from military families, many professionals in a position to serve them struggle with how to best respond and select appropriate interventions. The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirically-based and theoretically informed review to guide service provision and the development of evidence based treatments for military youth in particular. This review includes an overview of stressors associated with the deployment cycle, emotional and behavioral health consequences of deployment on youth and their caretaking parent, and existing preventative and treatment services for youth from military families. It concludes with treatment recommendations for older children and adolescents experiencing emotional and behavioral health symptoms associated with the deployment cycle.

The Impact of Parental Operational Stress Injury on Child Mental Health and Well-Being: A Scoping Review

“…A range of perspectives is required, including self-report from older children and adolescents (Chandra et al, 2010;Esposito-Smythers et al, 2011;Milburn & Lightfoot, 2013;Park, 2011;Ternus, 2010). This type of reporting requires that measurement tools need to be either developed or adapted and validated to ensure they are suitable to this population (Chandra & London, 2013;Lester & Flake, 2013).…”

“…No singular strategy for addressing the needs is recommended; instead, optimally, there would be a spectrum of services with a variety of access and interface options (Cozza, Haskins, et al, 2013;Dinshtein et al, 2011;Kudler & Porter, 2013;Smith-Osborne & Felderhoff, 2014). For example, use of peer support for youth has been identified as a preferred service delivery feature (Esposito-Smythers et al, 2011;Guzman, 2014;Harrison et al, 2014;Pearrow & Cosgrove, 2009). …”

“…It is critical that the focus shift toward a familycentered service delivery system (Cohen et al, 2011;Cozza, 2011;Cozza, Holmes, et al, 2013;Danish & Antonides, 2013;Dinshtein et al, 2011;Gorman et al, 2010;Lambert et al, 2014;Lester et al, 2010;McFarlane, 2009;Walsh et al, 2014) that can provide parallel services to individuals, spouses, couples, and children (Boricevic Mar sanic, Aukst Margetic, Jukic, et al, 2014;Boricevic Mar sanic, Aukst Margetic, Zecevic, et al, 2014;Cozza, 2011;Esposito-Smythers et al, 2011;Guzman, 2014;Holmes et al, 2013;Pearrow & Cosgrove, 2009;Pedras & Pereira, 2014;Sammons & Batten, 2008). No singular strategy for addressing the needs is recommended; instead, optimally, there would be a spectrum of services with a variety of access and interface options (Cozza, Haskins, et al, 2013;Dinshtein et al, 2011;Kudler & Porter, 2013;Smith-Osborne & Felderhoff, 2014).…”

Traumatic Stress and Affect Management in Military Families

“…The U.S. military force includes over 2.2 million service members and three out of five of them have spouses and/or children (Esposito-Smythers, Wolff, Lemmon, Bodzy, Swenson, & Spirito, 2011). The percentage of service members who do not survive in combat is decreasing over time (22% died in World War II; 16% in Vietnam; 8.8% in Iraq and Afghanistan), and there is a larger proportion of veterans living with the effects of service-related injuries than ever before (Eastridge, Jenkins, Flaherty, Schiller, & Holcomb, 2006).…”

Integrating Military and Veteran Culture in Social Work Education: Implications for Curriculum Inclusion

“…Presently, more than one half of military personnel are married, with the proportion of military personnel who are parents having increased since 2000 (DOD, 2012). Since the start of OEF/OIF/OND, more than two million children of U.S. service members have been affected by wartime deployments (Esposito-Smythers et al, 2011). For more than a decade since 9/11, children and their parents have negotiated repeated separations and subsequent family reunions in the context of wartime stress and the related imminent risk factors (Maholmes, 2012).…”