On balance, most military families bounce back from deployments, according to findings of the first comprehensive study of military families over the deployment cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there are some notable exceptions, such as some emotional problems for children, and some adjustment problems reported by teens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The findings “provide evidence that the experience of deployment is not uniformly associated with negative changes,” researchers said in the report, produced by the think tank Rand. The research, launched in 2009, was funded by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury and the Army’s Office of the Surgeon General.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The findings indicate that the key may be what happens to the service member during a deployment, rather than the actual fact that the service member is away from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Deployment Life Study surveyed 2,724 married service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, their spouses, and, when available, one child between the ages of 11 and 17, every four months\u00a0across a three-year period. Included in the group were service members who deployed, and a similar number of service members who didn’t deploy, so that researchers were able to compare the two groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were surveyed before, during and after the deployments. The youth (425 participated) answered their own questions; spouses answered questions about their children under age 11. To be eligible, the service member and spouse had to be living together\u00a0and eligible for deployment within six to 12 months of the initial,\u00a0baseline survey. The research was conducted over a three-year period.<\/span> \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Everyone was surprised we didn’t find more negative consequences of deployment. We thought we’d find a lot of negative impacts,” said Sarah Meadows, senior sociologist at Rand and one of the lead authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We can talk about military families generally not being seriously impacted,” she said. “But some families don’t do well, while some do really well,” and others fall somewhere in between, she said. The study results speak to the ability of military families to cope. And while the research didn’t evaluate programs for military families, she said, “it does suggest that what’s out there is doing something in terms of programs and services.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “My biggest take-away from this whole study is that it was done several years too late,” said Joyce Raezer, executive director of the National Military Family Association. “Rand is quick to admit \u2014 multiple times \u2014 that the bulk of the long, more intense deployments were over before they could get through all the approval processes and actually begin to field the study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “That’s such a shame and should be a lesson to DoD for the future. There should be ongoing longitudinal research being conducted so that we have a good baseline of data about how military families are doing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The researchers noted the limitations of the study: The data collection began in 2012\u00a0and ended in the summer of 2015.\u00a0Had the research been conducted in 2006 or 2007, when deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan were longer, more frequent\u00a0and more dangerous, the results may have been different. In addition, the baseline sample included fairly experienced families, married on average about 10 years and in the military for about 10 years, so on some level they have learned to cope with deployments. Only about 10 percent in the study were experiencing their first-time deployment, Meadows said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The researchers didn’t report the number of divorces and separations in the group studied. The numbers were too low for a meaningful analysis, Meadows said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the findings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n