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Learning Objective 1: Describe the relationships between social support, conflict, and stressful life events and mental health outcomes for FSMs post-deployment.
Learning Objective 2: Describe whether the presence of social support, or the absence of social conflict, is more influential to mental health symptom severity for FSMs post-deployment.
Methods: This descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional design examined the nature of the relationships that social support, social conflict, and stressful life events have with post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression symptom severity in a sample of 137 enlisted active duty Army female service members 6-12 months after re-deploying from Iraq. Secondly, it sought to determine whether the absence of social support, or the presence of social conflict, was more influential in the severity of these mental health symptoms.
Results: There were significant positive bivariate correlations (p < .01) between social conflict and stressful life events and each of the three outcome variables: PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms. Likewise, there were significant negative bivariate correlations (p < .01) between social support and each of the three outcome variables. After controlling for co-morbid mental health symptoms, hierarchical linear regression showed that greater PTSD symptom severity was best explained by greater post-deployment stressful life events and of the presence of social conflict. Anxiety symptom severity was best explained by the absence of perceived social support and the presence of conflict. And in contrast, greater depression symptom severity was best explained by the absence of social support.
Discussion & Implications for Nursing: There must be careful assessment for the presence of interpersonal conflict, the absence of social support, and the presence of additional life stressors in FSMs presenting with mental health symptoms post-deployment. Resilience in these women could potentially be improved by early assessment of these factors with specific interventions geared toward diminishing their effects on mental health symptom severity.
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