Spiritual Fitness for Military Veterans: A Curriculum Review and Impact Evaluation Using the Duke Religion Index (DUREL)

AbstractSuicide rates among military veterans exceed those found in the general population. While the exact reasons for these high rates are unknown, contributing factors may include the military ’s perceived rejection of patient identities, creating barriers to mental health care within the clinical sector and a mandate for prevention programs. Spiritual fitness has emerged over the last decade as an important concept in human performance optimization and is included among holistic approa ches to developing and maintaining mentally fit fighting forces. In attempts to better understand the role that spiritual fitness and religion play in mitigating and/or reducing suicide risk among veterans, the aims of this study were twofold (1) to assess the utility of the Duke Religion Index as a psychometric instrument for use with veterans completing spiritual fitness training and (2) to offer a post-intervention process evaluation of the spiritual fitness module from one resilience program offered to military veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2016. Twenty-eight attendees at the JRWI We llness Resilient Leadership Retreat completed post-retreat surveys to assess their satisfaction with the coursework and specifically, to assess the spiritual fitness module of the resiliency retreat’s curriculum. In total, the research team reviewed 25 completed post-intervention survey responses (89.3% response rate). Descriptive statistics indicated that respondents (n = 25) were subjectivel...
Source: Journal of Religion and Health - Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research