Relationship Distress in Partners of Combat Veterans: The Role of Partners’ Perceptions of Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms☆
Highlights
► We examined spouses’ perceptions of PTSD symptoms in combat veterans in two samples. ► Spouses’ distress was simultaneously predicted by perceptions of each PTSD cluster. ► Perceptions of withdrawal/numbing predicted higher spousal distress. ► Perceptions of reexperiencing symptoms predicted lower marital distress.
Section snippets
Participants
The sample consisted of 258 spouses or cohabiting partners of Utah NG/R service members. Almost all couples (98.4%) were married, with an average length of marriage of 9.72 years (SD = 8.03). Partners’ mean age was 32.64 (SD = 8.25), and the majority were female (98.4%) and White (91.7%). A total of 5.4% had a high school degree or less, 49.6% had some college education or an associate's degree, and 27.6% had a bachelor's or advanced degree. Of the service members, 218 had deployed overseas at least
Participants
The sample consisted of 465 spouses or cohabiting partners of Vietnam-era veterans. All were participants in the Family Interview Component of the NVVRS. The NVVRS was a nationally representative survey that examined the prevalence of PTSD and readjustment problems among Vietnam-era veterans in the late 1980s (Kulka et al., 1990). Partners’ ages ranged from 21 to 73 (M = 40.0, SD = 7.44). Most partners (80.6%) were female; 19% were African American, 18.6% were Hispanic American, and 62.4% were
Discussion
The current paper explored how psychological and relationship distress in partners of combat veterans were associated with their perceptions of veterans’ reexperiencing symptoms, emotional numbing/withdrawal, and hyperarousal symptoms. We examined these associations in two separate samples, one with partners of veterans from the recent era of conflicts centered around Afghanistan and Iraq and a second with partners of veterans from the Vietnam era. As expected, perceptions of all types of
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This study was funded by the first author's start-up funds, provided by the University of Utah. The authors wish to thank Camila S. Rodrigues for her assistance with the data collection and management involved in this study, as well as the Utah National Guard Chaplains and the Utah National Guard/Reserve service members and families for their support of this project.