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Wartime military deployment and increased pediatric mental and behavioral health complaints

Gregory H Gorman1, Matilda Eide, Elizabeth Hisle-Gorman

  • 1Department of Pediatrics, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, 4301 Jones Bridge Rd, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. ggorman@usuhs.mil

Pediatrics
|November 10, 2010
PubMed

Insights

Parental military deployment is linked to an 11% increase in mental and behavioral health visits for children aged 3-8. Specific disorders like behavioral and stress saw higher increases during deployment, particularly in older children.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric Health
  • Military Medicine
  • Mental Health Research

Background:

  • Children of military personnel experience stress during parental deployments.
  • Parental absence due to deployment can impact child well-being.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To assess the impact of parental military deployment on outpatient mental and behavioral health visits in children aged 3 to 8 years.
  • To quantify the relative rate of these visits based on parental deployment status.

Main Methods:

  • Retrospective cohort study analyzing records of active-duty military children (2006-2007).
  • Linked child health records with parent deployment data.
  • Utilized International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) codes to identify mental and behavioral health visits.
  • Employed random-effects negative binomial regression for longitudinal data analysis to determine incidence rate ratios (IRR).

Main Results:

  • The study included 642,397 children and 442,722 military parents.
  • Children with a deployed parent had an 11% higher rate of mental and behavioral health visits (IRR: 1.11; P < .001) compared to when a parent was home.
  • Specific increases observed for anxiety (IRR: 1.14; P = .095), behavioral (IRR: 1.19; P < .001), and stress disorders (IRR: 1.18; P < .001).
  • Older children, and those with married, male parents experienced greater increases in visit rates during deployment.

Conclusions:

  • Parental military deployment is associated with an 11% increase in mental and behavioral health outpatient visits for young children.
  • Behavioral and stress disorders showed significant increases (19% and 18%, respectively) during parental deployments.
  • The impact was more pronounced in older children and children of married, male military parents.
Abstract

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