Publication year
2017
Citation Title
Spouse and family functioning before and after a Marine’s suicide: Comparisons to deaths by accident and in combat.
Journal Name
Military Psychology
Journal Volume
29
Issue Number
4
Page Numbers
294-306
DOI
10.1037/mil0000156
Summary
Military suicide is a significant mental health concern for both Active Duty Soldiers and Veterans and can have a lasting impact on their friends and families. To better understand the experiences of family and friend survivors of Service members who completed suicide, this study explored the survivors' experiences. Overall, there were differences in the experiences of Marine families before a death, shortly after, and four years after, for death by suicide compared to death by accident or in combat.
Key Findings
Marines who died by suicide had lower family cohesiveness, lower spousal psychological health, and higher family conflict compared to Marines who died in combat.
Marine wives reported higher levels of perceived stigma and shame when their husbands died by suicide rather than in combat. However, they experienced friend support at a greater rate than those whose husbands died by accident or in combat.
Current spouse and family functioning did not differ based on type of death, which could be related to increased resilience in military families.
Implications for Program Leaders
Provide education to military couples about how to reduce family conflict and improve family cohesion
Offer workshops that strengthen family resilience and functioning and use evidence-based programs such as Family Checkup (civilian), Essential Life Skills for Military Families, and Life Guard (military)
Disseminate information regarding possible suicide risk factors and how to seek help if a Service member, spouse, or other notices a Service member may be at risk
Implications for Policy Makers
Promote unit members and families' engagement with spouses of recently deceased Service members, regardless of cause of death
Encourage the development and continuation of programs that can promote Service member and military spouse mental health
Encourage the training of professionals who work with military families to better recognize the warning signs of suicide risk in Service members and their families with whom they work
Methods
Participants were recruited via the U.S. Marine Corps, which provided last known contact information for married Marines who died by suicide, accident, or combat (297 potential participants).
The contact information was four years old on average, and of the 297 possible participants, only 140 were able to be contacted. Of this 140, 70 chose to participate.
The U.S. Marine Corps sent an initial introduction and encouraged participation via mail. The researchers followed up with a mailed invitation and then a phone call. Participants were allowed to participate via recorded telephone call (33 participants) or via an online web survey (37 participants).
Participants
Participants were 70 female spouses of deceased Marine Corps Service members who died by suicide, combat, or accident between 2008 and 2010. Seventeen deaths were by suicide, 34 were in combat, and 19 were by accident.
Participants averaged 52.90 years old (SD = 5.85), with the following races/ethnicities: 74% White, 3% Black, 3% Asian American, and 19% Latina (about 1% identified as White, unknown if Latina).
Forty-six participants had children, and 66.7% had children living with them at the time of the study.
No specifics or examples were provided regarding the situations surrounding accident, combat, or suicide deaths.
Limitations
The sample size was small, mostly related to inability to contact many potential participants, therefore limiting generalizability.
The research methods required participants to recall how their families were functioning on average four years ago, leading to likely inaccuracies and possible bias in their reporting.
Some of the measures used in the study were designed for use with Army Service members rather than Marines, and no data were provided indicating how this may impact their validity.
Avenues for Future Research
Conduct more studies on suicide closer to time of death, so the participants are easier to contact and may have more accurate recall
Identify and track families with Service members who have known suicide risk factors so that information can be gathered in real time
Examine the experiences of families of Service members who die by suicide with larger samples and with other Service branches
Focus
Marines
Target Population
Population Focus
Military Branch
Military Component
Abstract
The impact of service member suicides on families is not well understood. Civilian studies have demonstrated that family survivors of suicide deaths experience complicated grief, feel guilt and shame, and often do not receive sufficient social support. In this exploratory study, spouse survivors of Marines who died by suicide (N = 17), accident (N = 19), and in combat (N = 34) retrospectively reported on their immediate pre-and postmortem and current personal and family functioning. Nonparametric analyses revealed that several between-group differences existed. Observation of the means suggested that the spouses and families of Marines who died by suicide exhibited significantly poorer pre-and postmortem functioning compared with those whose spouses died in combat. Specific challenges included low family cohesion, high family conflict, perceived stigma, and shame. There were no differences in current spouse or family functioning, and there was weak evidence for posttraumatic growth among surviving spouses of those dying by suicide. These results should be considered preliminary and interpreted with caution given several methodological challenges.
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