Cohesiveness in previously deployed Army National Guard units: Implications for postdeployment behavioral health

A major health policy concern of deployed U.S. military personnel has been the observed high occurrence of postdeployment behavioral health problems. Unit cohesiveness is considered one of several protective factors against the negative effects of combat exposure. Studies, however, have not examined cohesiveness' group-level effects on the relationship of combat stressors to behavioral health problems. These relationships were examined both at the soldier level and unit level using hierarchical linear modeling. Recently, returned deployed Army National Guard soldiers (N = 4,567 in 50 companies) responded to questions about combat exposure, postdeployment unit cohesiveness, and behavioral health problems. Combat events were associated with more suicidal thoughts, alcohol misuse, and behavioral health problems. By comparison, unit cohesiveness was associated with fewer behavioral health problems both at the individual level (all three outcome variables) and unit level (alcohol misuse and behavioral health problems). At the soldier level, the buffering effect of unit cohesiveness was evident only for alcohol misuse. At the unit level the protective factor of unit cohesiveness on unit members' behavioral health was evident for alcohol misuse and behavioral health problems. In addition, the relationship of combat events to suicidal thoughts was less evident among units having higher rather than lower levels of unit cohesiveness (cross-leveling effect). Findings suggest that integrative unit relationships better enable soldiers to adjust to combat exposure. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).