Study Confirms Prolonged Army Deployments Increase Mental Health Diagnoses Among Army Wives
Posted: 01-14-2010 : RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Lengthy U.S. Army deployments increase the occurrence of depression, anxiety, sleep disorders and other mental health diagnoses for soldiers' wives left at home, according to a new study by researchers at RTI International, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

The study, published in the Jan. 14 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, estimated the relationship between the time U.S. Army soldiers spent deployed and the use of mental health services and mental health diagnoses among their wives.

Results showed that women married to deployed soldiers more frequently used mental health services and were more likely to be diagnosed with conditions including depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, acute stress reaction, and adjustment disorders as compared to the spouses of non-deployed soldiers during the same time period.

Researchers also found that the longer soldiers were deployed the more likely their spouses were to be diagnosed with a mental health condition and the more frequently they sought outpatient care for those diagnoses.

"This study confirms what many people have long suspected," said Alyssa Mansfield, Ph.D., the study's lead author, now a research epidemiologist at RTI International. "It provides compelling evidence that Army families are feeling the impact of lengthy and repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. The result is more depression, more stress, and more sleepless nights."

To conduct the study, researchers accessed de-identified data extracted from medical records for outpatient care received between 2003 and 2006 for more than 250,000 female spouses of active duty U.S. Army soldiers of all ranks.

Researchers estimated that among the wives of 84,000 soldiers who deployed for less than a year, there were 3,500 mental health cases above the number reported for a similar number of wives of non-deployed soldiers during the same time period. Among the 88,000 soldiers deployed for a year or longer, the number of additional mental health cases was 5,300.

Researchers cited a number of issues responsible for the increase. In addition to the fear for loved ones' safety, spouses of deployed personnel often face challenges of maintaining a household, coping as a single parent, and marital strain due to deployment and induced separation of an uncertain duration.

"We hope these findings will assist policy makers to better understand and predict the demands for mental health services required by the families of deployed service members," Mansfield said. "The majority of active duty Army soldiers are married, and they and their families may need mental health services for some period beyond their active service."

Mansfield conducted the research as part of her dissertation in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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