Parental Wartime Deployment and the Use of Mental Health Services Among Young Military Children

The wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) have been raging for almost 9 years, and some would qualify the current conflicts as the longest in US history. There is growing evidence that the psychosocial burden of war extends beyond the military service member’s combat time and includes effects on the spouse and children, perhaps unfolding years after combat exposures. Recent study reports have described the health and mental health (MH) issues of US service members involved in wartime deployments,1,2 including the toll on American lives. From October 2001 through May 2010, there have been 5473 American casualties and 38 076 wounded in action.3 A recent study identified significant stress and MH problems in US Army wives whose husbands experienced deployments.4 Evidence from that study, and a study of school-aged children,5 suggests cumulative stress from subsequent wartime deployments for at home parents and their children, and there are potential negative  lifetime effects. Despite these challenges, the vast majority of US military children manifest considerable resilience. In fact, a colleague of mine genuinely refers to military families as “our heroes at home.”