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The long war and parental combat deployment: effects on military children and at-home spouses

Patricia Lester1, Kris Peterson, James Reeves

  • 1UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA. plester@mednet.ucla.edu

Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
|April 23, 2010
PubMed

Insights

Military parental combat deployments negatively impact children

Area of Science:

  • Child and Family Psychology
  • Military Mental Health
  • Deployment Psychology

Background:

  • Military service members face frequent combat deployments.
  • Understanding the effects on children is crucial for support.
  • Previous research has not fully clarified these impacts.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To examine behavioral and emotional adjustment in children (6-12 years) of deployed or recently returned military parents.
  • To investigate the relationship between parental psychological distress and deployment length on child adjustment.

Main Methods:

  • Interviewed 272 children and their at-home civilian and/or active duty parents.
  • Assessed child adjustment outcomes using mixed effects linear models.
  • Examined the influence of parental psychological distress and deployment duration.

Main Results:

  • Parental distress and cumulative deployment length predicted increased child depression and externalizing symptoms.
  • Child anxiety levels were significantly elevated compared to community norms.
  • At-home civilian parental distress was higher when the spouse was currently deployed.

Conclusions:

  • Parental combat deployment has a lasting cumulative effect on children.
  • Psychological distress in both active duty and at-home civilian parents predicts child adjustment issues.
  • Findings can inform screening, prevention, and intervention strategies for military families.
Abstract

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