Publication year
2016
Citation Title
Parenting stress after deployment in navy active duty fathers
Journal Name
Military Medicine
Journal Volume
181
Issue Number
8
Page Numbers
854-862
DOI
10.7205/MILMED-D-15-00302
Summary
Deployment is often a stressful time for military families, and U.S. Service members have been deployed more often and for longer periods of time since 2003 and the start of OIF. This study synthesizes 21 qualitative articles related to the process of deployment among military families. The authors detail important tasks and specific challenges related to each stage of deployment, including pre-deployment, deployment, household adjustment for the family, and post-deployment.
Key Findings
More perceived threat to a Service member’s life or well-being during deployment was associated with increased parenting stress when Service members returned home.
Greater exposure to warfare during deployment was also associated with increased parenting stress when Service members returned home.
Neither Service members’ level of life stress, nor posttraumatic stress symptoms were associated with parenting stress following deployment.
Depression symptoms accounted for the relationship between both perceived threat and warfare exposure with parenting stress post-deployment.
Implications for Program Leaders
Inform Service members and their families about deployment stressors and how they may impact parenting post-deployment, as well as ways to reduce the negative impact on parenting
Provide support groups for Service members post-deployment to discuss parenting concerns
Educate Service members and their families about depression symptoms and the effects of depression on relationships and provide information about treatment and community resources
Implications for Policy Makers
Recommend professional development courses for providers working with Service members and their families regarding deployment stress, depression, and parenting difficulties
Encourage collaboration between the Department of Defense and mental health providers to make treatment easily accessible for Service members, particularly post-deployment
Promote the development of parenting programs for military families that include education regarding the associations between deployment, depression, and parenting stress
Methods
Fathers were recruited via informational advertisements at a naval outpatient clinic in Virginia.
Participants completed questionnaires about demographic information, deployment factors, parenting stress, and life stress and emotional difficulties.
The associations between deployment factors, parent emotions, and parenting stress were examined.
Participants
Participants included 111 Navy fathers who returned from a deployment during the past year, had a civilian wife, and had a child between the ages of one month and six years old.
On average, Navy fathers were 32.14 years old (SD = 6.10), had been married 6.37 years (SD = 3.80), and were primarily White (65%) or Black (23%), with 17% reporting Latino ethnicity.
Navy fathers had been in the military for 10.03 years (SD = 10.03), experienced 2.39 deployments (SD = 1.27), and spent 19.95 total months deployed (SD = 11.31), on average.
Limitations
Participants in this sample were all Sailors and included few Service members with high levels of warfare exposure, potentially limiting generalizability of results to other military populations.
Fathers may have under-reported their parenting stress in order to appear more favorable, which could have biased the results of the study.
The direction of effects cannot be determined due to the cross-sectional nature of the study.
Avenues for Future Research
Conduct a similar larger, longitudinal study with multiple military branches to more thoroughly assess the effects of deployment factors on parenting stress among military parents
Examine the role of child factors (e.g., child emotional or behavioral difficulties, child temperament) on the association between deployment factors and parenting stress
Investigate potential protective factors (e.g., social support) of parenting stress post-deployment
Focus
Navy
Target Population
Population Focus
Military Branch
Military Component
Abstract
Military fathers are being deployed, and leaving their families, for greater lengths of time and more frequently than ever before. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of recent deployment on parenting stress in U.S. Navy fathers with young children. Of the 111 participants who completed the one-time study questionnaire at a large military outpatient clinic on the Eastern seaboard, 67.6% had returned from a ship-based deployment. Regression analyses were performed, using the Parenting Stress Index as the outcome variable, deployment elements (such as time away from home in the past 5 years) as predictors, and adjusting for other factors such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Higher perceived threat and greater warfare exposure were both associated with increased parenting stress (p < 0.05) in the unadjusted model. These associations were greatly attenuated and no longer significant after adjustment for depression. In addition, rates of positive screens for PTSD and depression (17.1%) in this sample were higher than in other recent studies. In summary, these data indicate that various deployment factors are associated with increased parenting stress in Navy fathers back from deployment within the past year; these relationships are largely explained by depressive symptoms. Clinical implications are discussed.
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