¶ … Deployments on National Guard and Reserve Soldiers and Families
The use of reserve components for support of "overseas contingencies has increased significantly since September 11, 2001, and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq."[footnoteRef:1] This has resulted in a great impact on the members of the reserve forces and their families upon deployment of these members of the National Guard services to Afghanistan and Iraq. It is related in the work of the "Defense Science Task Force on Deployment of Members of the National Guard and Reserve in the Global War on Terrorism "that while children's "behavioral responses and mental health status during noncombat or routine deployments relate to the level of concurrent family stressors and/or maternal psychopathology…" that "…less is known about children from U.S. military families during a time of war or about the impact on children and families of a parent's combat experience or the combat deployment itself."[footnoteRef:2] [1: Defense Science Task Force on Deployment of Members of the National Guard and Reserve in the Global War on Terrorism (2007) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense For Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Washington, DC Retrieved from: http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/ADA478163.pdf ] [2: Ibid]
I. Mental Health Issues
The work of Mansfield, et al. (2007) reports a study in which electronic medical-record data for outpatient care received between 2003 and 2006 was received by military wives. Findings in the study show that "the deployment of spouses and the length of deployment were associated with mental health diagnoses."[footnoteRef:3] [3: Mansfield, A.J. et al. (2007) Deployment and the Use of Mental Health Services among U.S. Military Wives. All Military. Retrieved from: http://www.allmilitary.com/board/viewtopic.php?id=27225]
The work of Gever (nd) reports that the risk that a woman will receive a new mental diagnosis during her husband's deployment was significantly higher when he was overseas for a year or more."[footnoteRef:4] Gever relates that individual diagnoses "were as much as tripled among wives of soldiers with long deployments."[footnoteRef:5] The report states that rates of the cases per 1,000 women for specific diagnoses were as follows:...
MedPage Today. Retrieved from: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/01/extended-military-deployments-combat-areas-increase-stress-anxiety-depression-families.html] [5: Ibid]
(1) Depression: 27.4 (95% CI 22.4 to 32.3) for short deployments, 39.3 (95% CI 33.2 to 45.4) for long deployments;
(2) Drug use: 0.8 (95% CI -0.3 to 1.9) for short deployments, 2.6 (95% CI 1.2 to 4.0) for long deployments;
(3) Sleep disorder: 11.6 (95% CI 8.3 to 14.8) for short deployments, 23.5 (95% CI 19.4 to 27.6) for long deployments;
It is reported that other categories of diagnosis including "…neurotic stress disorder, impulse control disorder, and personality disorder -- showed nonsignificant trends toward increased frequency with long spousal deployments."[footnoteRef:6] [6: Ibid]
II. Effects of Deployment on Families
The work of Lynn Taylor Rick (2010) relates that the effects of deployments on families include "an increased incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder among soldiers" and that the families who are left behind following deployment "particularly the children, often face challenges of their own" as a Pediatrics study states findings that "…families who experience deployment saw higher anxiety levels in their children. Those children had also higher levels of insomnia and stress, and were more likely to struggle academically."[footnoteRef:7] Rick (2010) additionally reports that the anxiety problems have been found to "…persist after the deployed parent returns home."[footnoteRef:8] According to an individual who works with families at the National Guard Family Assistance Center, these issues generally, begin "…long before the deployment and can remain after as families readjust."[footnoteRef:9] [7: Rick, Lynn Taylor (2010) Deployment Can Strain Families. 25 Sept. 2010. Rapid City Journal. Retrieved from: http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/lifestyles/article_1f4fc55a-c822-11df-adb5-001cc4c002e0.html] [8: Ibid] [9: Ibid]
The individual interviewed by Rick and identified as a Mrs. Anderson relates that when her husband was deployed she was unable to help her son with his homework…
