Secondary Trauma and Military Veteran Caregivers

The article focuses on the secondary trauma stressors experienced by those who care for members of the military with special attention to the caregivers of war fighters seeking help from combat stress. Consistent with the theme of the special issue of understanding and preparing for the challenges of combat stress, the authors suggest that military caregiver stress and resilience require attention. The article calls for more attention to this area by researchers, practitioners, and policy makers given the growing combat stress injuries due, in large part, to recent multiple and lengthy deployments. The first section of the article describes secondary traumatic stress (STS) conceptually by identifying and defining STS and related constructs and the relevant theories and the prevalence estimates. The middle section of the article discusses the risk and protective factors for STS. The latter section provides an overview of very underdeveloped literature on military veteran caregivers by first describing this population, the most promising approaches to mitigating and preventing STS, and several model programs that may be useful for units of military caregivers.