Military Spouses

The purpose of this research was to describe predictors of participation in health-promoting behaviors among military spouses.

Through self-reported surveys, researchers examined what factors (perceived stress, number of work hours, number of children, etc.) affected the involvement of health-promoting behaviors (exercise, dietary, medical check-ups, substance avoidance, etc.) for wives of deployed Active Duty Army Soldi

Background: Military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have involved the frequent and extended deployment of military personnel, many of whom are married. The effect of deployment on mental health in military spouses is largely unstudied.

Deployment is often stressful, not only for Service members, but also for their partners. Using Army wives’ medical records from 2003 to 2006, the association between Service member deployment and wives' mental health visits and diagnoses was examined.

The purpose of this study was to investigate combat-related post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and couple relationships in Army couples. US Army combat veteran couples (N = 66 couples) completed self-report questionnaires on couple functioning, coercion, resilience, and PTSS.

Posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) of Service members, as well as their partners' personal history of trauma or secondary trauma symptoms, may combine to decrease couples' functioning.

With the continued US military presence throughout the world, it is important to understand the struggles of family members left behind during war, because they are important to the ‘‘success’’ of military marriages and potentially deployments.

Strategies that military couples use to manage contradicting experiences or competing demands during deployment may affect their marital satisfaction and personal stress. Contradictions that deployed Soldiers' wives recalled experiencing were coded and organized into themes.

Since military operations began in Afghanistan and Iraq, lengthy deployments have led to concerns about the vulnerability of military marriages. Yet evaluating military marriages requires some benchmark against which marital outcomes in the military may be compared.

Military couples may experience significant marital stressors that civilian couples do not face (e.g., deployment, mental health concerns). Rates of marriage and divorce among Active Duty, male U.S. Service members and a matched civilian sample were compared from 1998-2005.