The Illness Behaviors of Military Women

Women in the United States military serve in a variety of stressful and demanding environments. Historically, few female leaders were available to mentor and guide military women to cope with austere conditions and female health concerns. Some health care needs are unique to women and must be addressed since women frequently are deployed.

Illness behavior is the perception of bodily changes and interpretation of the symptoms as illness or variation of wellness. Additionally, illness behavior involves seeking advice and validation from others that lead to either self-care or professional treatments. This definition is well-suited for nursing since it emphasizes that illness behavior occurs within an ethno-cultural context and includes the unique dimension of consulting others for symptom validation. The military culture is traditionally hierarchical, authoritarian, and male-oriented; and thus, influences how military women perceive, interpret and act on illness behaviors.

This study focuses on military women managing genitourinary symptoms and compares the self-reported symptom management at the deployed to home base settings. The purpose of this descriptive, correlational study is to apply and test the Illness Behavior Model as a unidirectional relationship between the ethno-cultural concept to the phenomenological experience, coping responses and the self-care concepts. This study is in progress and will analyze a portion of the data from the “Genitourinary Infection Self-Diagnosis for Deployed Military Women” study by examining the demographics and reported symptom management of 600 women. The statistical techniques of MANCOVA and logistic regression will be used to analyze the data. Additionally, a content analysis will be used to analyze the write-in responses. The results of this study will inform military leaders and clinicians about the effect of deployments on specific illness behaviors of women.

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