Spouse abuse among United States Air Force personnel who deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom.

Abstract

The authors examined spouse abuse perpetration among all married U.S. Air Force personnel who deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom. Using Poisson and conditional Poisson regression, they compared rates of spouse abuse perpetration predeployment and postdeployment in the population of married U.S. Air Force personnel who had a combat-related deployment between October 1, 2001 and October 31, 2008 (N = 156,296). Just over 2% (n = 3,524) of deployers perpetrated at least one substantiated incident of spouse physical or emotional abuse within the 308,197,653 days at risk for abuse during the study period. Male deployers perpetrated spouse abuse at approximately twice the rate of female deployers. Regarding changes in rates of spouse abuse perpetration postdeployment versus predeployment among all deployers, the authors found no differences overall; however, several deployer and incident-related characteristics moderated this effect. Rates of emotional abuse, mild abuse, and abuse not involving alcohol were significantly lower postdeployment, whereas rates of moderate/severe abuse and abuse involving alcohol were significantly higher postdeployment. Although the majority of U.S. Air Force deployers did not perpetrate any substantiated incidents of spouse abuse, there was variability in the impact of deployment on spouse abuse rates before versus after deployment. The finding that rates of moderate/severe spouse abuse incidents involving alcohol were higher postdeployment suggests a need for focused prevention/intervention efforts.

Child Maltreatment Among U.S. Air Force Parents Deployed in Support of Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom

“…We also found that maltreatment rates were consistently lower following deployment when child maltreatment was mild (e.g., did not involve offender alcohol use, did not result in injury to the child victim, and was rated as mild in severity) or when the incident involved emotional abuse. These findings are consistent with results reported in prior research of maltreating parents in deploying families (e.g., Thomsen et al, 2014) and with prior research examining the relationship between combat-related deployments and spouse abuse (i.e., Rabenhorst et al, 2013), which found postdeployment increases in incidents involving severe abuse and offender alcohol use.…”

“…For example, in our previous USAF study (Thomsen et al, 2014) and in this study child maltreatment that was moderate/severe and that involved offender alcohol use increased after deployment whether we examined the child maltreatment victim rates or the child maltreatment perpetrator rates. Likewise, in two USAF studies that examined spouse maltreatment, we observed that moderate/severe spouse maltreatment and spouse maltreatment that involved alcohol use increased after deployment (Rabenhorst et al, 2012;Rabenhorst et al, 2013). The findings that the rates of moderate/ severe forms of maltreatment and incidents involving offender alcohol use were higher postdeployment for both spouse and child maltreatment suggest the need for prevention/intervention efforts designed to support families when a deploying spouse returns from a combat deployment, with a focus on returning spouses where alcohol use is a problem.…”

Parenting and Children's Resilience in Military Families

“…Further, year of fi rst deployment, number of deployments, and total deployment duration did not moderate the effect. Using the same data, Rabenhorst et al ( 2013 ) reported lower postdeployment rates of substantiated (i.e., impactful) emotional IPV, mild-but-impactful physical IPV, and impactful incidents not involving alcohol. However, they found higher postdeployment rates of physical IPV with moderate/severe impact and impactful incidents involving alcohol.…”

“…Regarding IPV, three studies by McCarroll and colleagues (McCarroll, Thayer, et al, 2000 ;McCarroll et al, 2003 ;Newby et al, 2005 ) used data on the relationships of US Army soldiers deploying to peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and two studies (Rabenhorst et al, 2012(Rabenhorst et al, , 2013 used population data on US Air Force members' deployments to OIF/OEF. McCarroll and colleagues' Army studies found mostly no associations between deployment and IPV, with some possible indication of deployers' higher rates for severe IPV and an effect for lengthy deployments.…”

“…In a review of recent deployment research, De Burgh, White, Fear, and Iversen ( 2011 ) identifi ed several studies that found elevated levels of stress among at-home parents with deployed partners relative to civilians or military parents with nondeployed partners. There is also evidence that rates of child maltreatment, primarily neglect, rise during deployments, especially among families where maltreatment has previously occurred, and that most maltreatment is perpetrated by civilian female spouses McCarthy et al, 2013 ). While only a few studies of civilian parents in military families have been conducted, there is robust evidence from civilian parents in the general population that parents experiencing mental health symptoms also experience impairments in their parenting, such as reduced sensitivity and responsiveness to their children (Trapolini, Ungerer, & McMahon, 2008 ).…”