| Title | Publication | Date/Location |
|---|---|---|
| Patterns of strengths in U.S. military couples | Journal of Child and Family Studies | 2019 Sep;29:1249–1263 |
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Pflieger JC, Porter B, Carballo CE, Stander VA, Corry NH This study examined patterns of strengths among military couples in the Millennium Cohort Family Study (n = 9,642), including beliefs (self-mastery, positive outlook, spirituality), social support, and family communication. Results supported five patterns of strengths, with 58.4% of couples exhibiting a pattern of high strengths; 33.6% of couples exhibiting two patterns in which one member of the couple was higher on strengths than the other member; 5.1% of couples exhibiting a pattern of low strengths; and 2.9% of couples exhibiting a pattern of moderately high beliefs and social support, yet very low family communication. Higher spouse education level and service member officer rank consistently distinguished patterns of high strengths, whereas couples with lower mental health, marital quality, and military satisfaction were more likely to exhibit patterns of low strengths. These results provide a snapshot of couples early in the military career cycle and highlight the need to adopt a family-centered perspective in military resilience programs and policies. |
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| Military life stressors, family communication and satisfaction: Associations with children’s psychosocial outcomes | Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma | 2019 May;13(1):75-87 |
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Briggs EC, Fairbank JA, Tunno AM, Lee RC, Corry NH, Pflieger JC, Stander VA, Murphy RA The purpose of this study was to examine facets of military life and family factors that may impact child psychosocial and mental health functioning. Using baseline data from the Millennium Cohort Family Study, this study examined family demographics and composition (age, number of children), military life stressors (injury, family, and deployment stressors), family communication and satisfaction, parental social functioning, and child mental health and behavioral functioning. Injury- and family-related military stressors were significant indicators of heightened risk for child mental health conditions, whereas greater levels of parental social functioning and family satisfaction were associated with lower risk of child mental health conditions. Differential associations were found in child functioning when military-related variables (e.g., service component), sociodemographic, and family composition factors (number and age of the children in the home) were examined. These findings underscore the importance of examining the “whole child” within the broader ecological and military family context to understand factors associated with children’s mental and behavioral health. The results have considerable implications for the development of policies to support children and families encountering multiple stressors related to a parent’s military service. |
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| Guidance for use of weights: An analysis of different types of weights and their implications when using SAS PROCs. | General Psychiatry | 2019 Feb 20;32(1):e100038 |
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Richardson, S., Lin, T., Li, Y., Niu, X., Xu, M., Stander, V., & Tu, X. SAS and other popular statistical packages provide support for survey data with sampling weights. For example, PROC MEANS and PROC LOGISTIC in SAS have their counterparts PROC SURVEYMEANS and PROC SURVEYLOGISTIC to facilitate analysis of data from complex survey studies. On the other hand, PROC MEANS and many other classic SAS procedures also provide an option for including weights and yield identical point estimates, but different standard errors (SEs), as their corresponding survey procedures. This paper takes an in-depth look at different types of weights and provides guidance on use of different SAS procedures. |
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| Depression among military spouses: Demographic, military, and service member psychological health risk factors | Depression and Anxiety | 2018 Dec;35(12):1137-1144 |
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Donoho CJ, LeardMann CA, O’Malley CA, Walter KH, Riviere LA, Curry JF, Adler AB In this study, 4.9% of military spouses had a probable diagnosis of major depression disorder (MDD). Spouses married to enlisted service members or those with PTSD had increased risk for MDD, after adjustment for demographic and military factors. Less education, unemployment, and prior military service among spouses, as well as having more than three children, were also associated with increased risk for MDD. These findings imply that deployment alone may not negatively impact military spouses, but rather adverse mental health of the service member, especially PTSD, may increase the risk for MDD among military spouses. |
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| Mental health of children of deployed and non-deployed US military service members: The Millennium Cohort Family Study | Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics | 2018 Dec;39(9):683-692 |
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Fairbank JA, Briggs EC, Lee RC, Corry NH, Pflieger JC, Gerrity ET, Amaya-Jackson LM, Stander VA, Murphy RA Prior research has found that youth in military families were significantly more likely to report higher rates of major depression and use of illicit drugs in comparison to their non-military counterparts. The present study investigated the associations between service member deployment experiences and family demographic factors and children’s mental health and psychological functioning, utilizing data collected from 9,872 Service members/military spouses through both online and mail survey options. The results from the Family Study indicated that while most spouses did not report that their children had mental health, emotional, or behavioral difficulties regardless of parental deployment status, a significant minority of children whose parents had been combat deployed were more likely to have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD and depression by a doctor or health professional in comparison to youth without a deployed parent. Children with a non-combat deployed service member parent were also more likely to have been assigned a diagnosis of depression in comparison to youth without a deployed parent. |
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| Engaging military couples in marital research: Does requesting referrals from service members to recruit their spouses introduce sample bias? | BMC Medical Research Methodology | 2018 Oct;18(1):114 |
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McMaster HS, Stander VA, Williams CS, Woodall KA, O'Malley CA, Bauer LM, Davila EP Enrolling couples in research studies is not uncommon; however, most research reports fail to provide details about recruitment strategies or have the ability to examine selection biases. This paper examined two recruitment strategies used to enroll military couples in a longitudinal study, assessing the impact of both strategies on the representativeness of the final study sample. Using data from the Millennium Cohort Program, results suggest that requesting referrals from service members to recruit their spouses introduced minimal bias compared to contacting spouses directly. Service members appeared to be more likely to refer their spouses if they perceived the research topic as relevant to their spouse, and these spouses were more likely to respond for similar reasons. Even though referred spouses were more likely to respond, the overall success rate of using a referral strategy was less than that of recruiting spouses directly. |
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| The impact of military and nonmilitary experiences on marriage: Examining the military spouses' perspective | Journal of Traumatic Stress | 2018 Oct;31(5):719-729 |
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Pflieger JC, LeardMann CA, McMaster HS, Donoho CJ, Riviere LA This study examined the impact of military experiences and nonmilitary family stressors on the military spouse’s perception of marital quality. After adjusting for demographic, relationship, and military characteristics, results indicated that most military experiences did not have a direct association with low marital quality, with the exception of service member posttraumatic stress. Rather, nonmilitary experiences of the military spouse, including lack of social support, caregiver burden, work-family conflict, and financial strain, increased odds of low marital quality. These findings suggest that providing additional supports to address nonmilitary family stressors experienced by spouses may strengthen military marriages. |
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| Prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in the United States military spouses: The Millennium Cohort Family Study | Depression and Anxiety | 2018 Sep;35(9):815-829 |
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Steenkamp MM, Corry NH, Qian M, Li M, McMaster HS, Fairbank JA, Stander VA, Hollahan L, Marmar CR This cross-sectional study assesses the prevalence of eight mental health conditions in spouses of U.S. Service members with 2 to 5 years of service and the association between deployment status and spousal outcomes, as well as concordance in psychopathology between spouses and Service members. Over one-third of spouses met criteria for at least one of the assessed psychiatric conditions. Having a partner who deployed with combat resulted in higher prevalence of anxiety, insomnia and somatization. Rates of depression, anxiety and somatization were similar between spouses and Service members. |
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| Smoking and drinking behaviors of military spouses: Findings from the Millennium Cohort Family Study | Addictive Behaviors | 2017 Sep;77:121-130 |
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Trone DW, Powell TM, Bauer LM, Seelig AD, Peterson AV, Littman AJ, Williams EC, Maynard CC, Bricker JB, Boyko EJ This cross-sectional study assesses the associations between stressful military experiences and tobacco use and alcohol misuse among Service member spouses. Our findings suggest that contextual characteristics about the deployment experience, as well as the perceived stress of those experiences, may be more impactful than the simple fact of Service member deployment itself. These results suggest that considering the impact of deployment experiences on military spouses reveals important dimensions of military community adaptation and risk. |
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| An experimental comparison of web-push vs. paper-only survey procedures for conducting an in-depth health survey of military spouses | BMC Medical Research Methodology | 2017 Apr;17:73 |
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McMaster HS, LeardMann CA, Speigle S, Dillman DA An experiment was conducted to compare two methods for surveying spouses married to U.S. Service members. Military spouses were assigned to either a web-push group (requesting online survey completion initially and then in later contacts offering a paper option) or to a paper-only group (requesting response by paper survey only). The web-push approach produced a significantly higher response rate and was less expensive than the paper-only approach, with no meaningful differences in spouse demographic, military, and health characteristics. Results suggest that a web-approach may be more effective with young military spouses because of their heavy reliance on the internet and that this may also hold true for the general population as they become more uniformly internet savvy. |
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