Special Concerns in Military Families

This article summarizes research literature published in the last 6  years addressing common features and health needs of military families with the goal of improving military cultural competence. This includes recognizing that (a) The military carries its own culture as evidenced by its particular traditions, beliefs, language, and set of guiding principles (Sangh era Optom Educ J Assoc Sch Coll Optom. 42:8–16,2017) and (b) military families —defined in this paper as active duty service members, their spouses, their children, and civilian warfighters in the form of National Guard and Reservists (NG/R)—face unique stressors as they access health care either in military treatment facilities (MTFs) or in civilian settings. Given the br oad and unshared definition of military cultural competence, the CDP’s framework for understanding military culture helped shape the focus of our review into literature addressing military stressors and resources, with a particular interest on the impact of deployment, reintegration after deployme nt, interfamily relationships strained by military service, mental health concerns related to military families, and the vulnerabilities of civilian warfighters.Recent FindingsA 2018 demographics profile revealed there were 1.3 million active duty service members, with 605,677 spouses and 981,871 children (Department of Defense, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Community Family Policy (ODASD (MC&FP)).2018). C...
Source: Current Psychiatry Reports - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research