Wives' Adjustment to Military Deployment: An Empiracal Evaluation of a Family Stress Model

The adjustment of wives of naval personnel to the service-related absence of their spouses was invetigated in a longitudinal research design. Guided by the T-Double ABCX Model, predictor variables were chosen reflecting family vulnerability, family type, family resources, appraisal, and coping and problem solving. These variables were related to changes occuring from prior to deployment, and from early deployment to late deployment, in several indicators of adjustment: health complaints, dysphoria, depression, marital happiness, and parenting concerns. The T-Double ABCX Model predicted between nine and 35 percent of variance in adjustment. Components of the model varied in their usefulness according to dimension and phase of adjustment.