Redeployments Strain Military Families
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- CHILD ABUSE
- CHILDREN'S HEALTH
- CHILD PSYCHIATRY
- FAMILY
- MENTAL DISORDERS
- MILITARY PERSONNEL
- STRESS DISORDERS, POSTTRAUMATIC
- STRESS, PSYCHOLOGICAL
- WAR
Washington, DC—With US military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan now in their fifth and sixth years, respectively, active duty, reserve, and National Guard service members and their families face increasing stress from repeated deployments, said Stephen Cozza, MD, professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Md.
(Photo credit: Major William Thurmond/US Army)
Cozza, who is an associate director of the University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress (http://www.centerforthestudyoftraumaticstress.org/), spoke at a workshop on children and trauma at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in May.
MULTIPLE DEPLOYMENTS
Active duty service members have 1.2 million dependents aged 23 years or younger; many of those serving have had at least 2 to 4 deployments, some lasting 18 months. About 44% of active duty troops have children, nearly two-fifths of whom are aged 5 years or younger (http://militaryhomefront.dod.mil/mhf_reports/QQoLR/QQoLR-2Of13.pdf).
Reserve force members, who have 660 000 children and adolescents younger than 22 years, and …
