Effects of Deployment on National Guard and Reserve Families

Introduction

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. This has resulted in a significant impact on members of the reserve forces and their families upon deployment to those regions. The Defense Science Task Force on Deployment of Members of the National Guard and Reserve in the Global War on Terrorism notes 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," far 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.

Mansfield et al. (2007) report a study in which electronic medical-record data for outpatient care received between 2003 and 2006 was examined for military wives. The findings show that the deployment of spouses and the length of deployment were associated with mental health diagnoses.

Mental Health Effects on Spouses

Gever (n.d.) reports that the risk of a woman receiving a new mental health diagnosis during her husband's deployment was significantly higher when he was overseas for a year or more. Individual diagnoses were as much as tripled among wives of soldiers with long deployments. The reported rates per 1,000 women for specific diagnoses were as follows:

Depression: 27.4 (95% CI 22.4–32.3) for short deployments; 39.3 (95% CI 33.2–45.4) for long deployments.

Drug use: 0.8 (95% CI −0.3–1.9) for short deployments; 2.6 (95% CI 1.2–4.0) for long deployments.

Effects of Deployment on Families and Children

Sleep disorder: 11.6 (95% CI 8.3–14.8) for short deployments; 23.5 (95% CI 19.4–27.6) for long deployments.

Other diagnostic categories — including neurotic stress disorder, impulse control disorder, and personality disorder — showed nonsignificant trends toward increased frequency with long spousal deployments.

Rick (2010) reports that the effects of deployments on families include an increased incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder among soldiers, and that families left behind — particularly children — often face serious challenges of their own. A Pediatrics study found that families who experience deployment saw higher anxiety levels in their children, along with higher levels of insomnia and stress, and that those children were more likely to struggle academically. Rick (2010) additionally notes that anxiety problems have been found to persist even after the deployed parent returns home. According to a worker at the National Guard Family Assistance Center, these issues generally begin long before the deployment and can remain after the family attempts to readjust.

One affected spouse, identified as Mrs. [redacted], described how her husband's deployment left her solely responsible for household duties — cooking, laundry, yard work, and home maintenance — leaving her unable to help her son consistently with his homework. To address her son's academic difficulties, she applied for a grant and received funding to hire tutoring services. This intervention proved effective in helping her son keep up with his schoolwork and in reducing overall family stress.