Military family adaptation to United Nations Operations in Somalia

In this first known investigation of family responses to the absence of the active duty sponsor deployed to Somalia, 16 adults and 12 children repeatedly completed self-report measures of psychopathology and parenting attitudes. Stay-home parents registered more distress than their deployed spouses. Levels of parental intimacy varied significantly over time, reaching its lowest point near the end of the mission. Future humanitarian mission deployment support programs may need to more effectively address issues of parenting and spousal stress if future research confirms our findings.