Changing the Personal Narrative: A Pilot Study of a Resiliency Intervention for Military Spouses

The more than decade long tempo of war has taken a considerable toll on military families, with the rates of mental health concerns in non-deployed spouses on the rise. To date, few evidence-based programs exist to meet the unique needs of military spouses. The current study presents early findings from the development and implementation of HomeFront Strong (HFS), an 8 week group-based resiliency intervention designed to support military spouses through deployment transitions. In three group cohorts, 20 women completed the HFS intervention, and 14 of those participants provided evaluation data at the pre-group and 3 month follow up (3MFU) assessments, including a semi-structured interview designed to elicit a personal narrative about deployment experiences. Thematic analyses of the personal narratives demonstrated that negative cognitions (e.g., helplessness; feeling unsupported) about deployment were associated with higher rates of depression prior to group participation. At 3MFU, personal narratives included more positive cognitions and fewer negative cognitions, suggesting that HFS changed the way spouses thought about their deployment experiences. Moreover, participants reported fewer symptoms of depression, higher levels of social support, and greater life satisfaction at 3MFU. While this Phase I study is small and lacks a comparison group, the demonstration of positive results is promising and warrants further attention.