{"id":53045,"date":"2019-08-21T10:00:31","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T10:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/08\/21\/military-parents-injuries-are-affecting-their-childrens-well-being-heres-how\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T10:57:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T10:57:32","slug":"military-parents-injuries-are-affecting-their-childrens-well-being-heres-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/pay-benefits\/2019\/08\/21\/military-parents-injuries-are-affecting-their-childrens-well-being-heres-how\/","title":{"rendered":"Military parents\u2019 injuries are affecting their children\u2019s well-being. Here\u2019s how."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the period after their military parent\u2019s injury, children<\/a> had spikes in medical visits due to maltreatment, for mental health care, for injuries, and they had increased use of psychiatric medications, according to new research analyzing data on their doctor visits and prescriptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These children also had fewer visits for preventive care after their parents\u2019 injury. Overall, the findings provide new, data-based understanding that a military parent\u2019s wounds, illness or injury has an adverse impact on children<\/a> \u2013 and that all those who are caregivers or who work with these children need to be aware, said Elizabeth Hisle-Gorman, lead author of the study published in the August edition of the journal Health Affairs. She\u2019s an associate professor of pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If caregivers, pediatricians, school personnel, coaches and others understand this, she said, \u201cperhaps we can help provide intervention for these children earlier, so that the negative effect of a serious parental illness would be more mitigated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s a notable exception in the findings. The data didn\u2019t show the negative effects — at least in terms of medical visits — for children of those whose wounds or injuries were combat-related. They noted this was a \u201csurprising and welcome\u201d finding. In children of combat-injured troops, rates of visits for maltreatment, mental health care, and injury didn\u2019t differ significantly after the injury, compared to the two years before the injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are various possible reasons for this finding, but part of that may be limitations in the data. It\u2019s likely that combat-related injuries were under-counted, because some may have been mis-classified as non-combat-related injuries in the database used for comparison, especially PTSD and TBI, which may not be diagnosed immediately. Of the 272,211 military parents who had been injured, ill, or wounded in the time frame studied, 1,333 were flagged in the database as being combat injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of the relation to combat,<\/b> this data is a \u201ccall to action to get everybody mobilized to address this issue,\u201d said Karen Ruedisueli, deputy government relations director of the National Military Family Association. It substantiates what advocates have been hearing anecdotally about parents\u2019 concerns about the mental health of children of injured parents, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers studied medical visits of 485,002 children of 272,211 military parents who had been injured, ill or wounded in the years 2004 to 2014. The children were ages 2 to 16 at the time of the parent\u2019s injury. Researchers compared the number of visits in the two years before the parent\u2019s injury with the two years after the parent\u2019s injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They used data from a Military Health System database of all health care provided to military members and their families through Tricare, including information on all inpatient and outpatient care at civilian and military health care facilities, and data on all outpatient prescriptions. They matched it with military parents identified in the Military Health System database on ill, injured and wounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the findings about children of these parents in the two years after the injury, compared to the two-year period before:<\/p>\n\n\n\n