Reserve Component

PURPOSE: To explore the experiences of military spouses living with veterans with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Spouses are often a main source of support for Veterans and may be strongly impacted by Veterans' symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Female spouses of Veterans with PTSD were interviewed about what it was like living with a Veteran with PTSD.

When military service members deploy, they move outside the immediate boundary of their families. However, because boundaries are permeable, service members remain a psychological part of their families in spite of their physical absence.

Families must balance closeness and distance in boundaries with a deployed family member in order to maintain a relationship and cope with the separation in healthy ways.

Extensive research has evaluated potential negative effects of military deployments on romantic relationships. Comparatively few studies have examined potential positive effects of such deployments.

The effect of deployment on marriage is often perceived negatively, and the potential benefit of deployment is relatively less studied.

Using survey data from 292 mothers married to members of the U.S. military, the authors examined relations among military deployment factors, quality of maternal care, and child attachment behavior with the mother.

Separation or decreased quality of parenting may affect child attachment during military deployment. Relationships between child attachment, mother depressive symptoms and quality of child care, and father involvement and deployment variables were examined.

In this study, we examined psychological, demographic, and physical predictors of job satisfaction among military personnel across the Armed Forces. Data were collected from 24,881 members of the Active Duty and Reserve/Guard components.

Job satisfaction among Service members is determined by various factors. This study explored the associations among job pressure, demographic factors (e.g., age), and health status with job satisfaction of Active Duty and Reservists Service members.