Building Resilience in Military Families: Development and Evaluation of a Military Child Intervention.

Abstract

Over two million children in the United States have been directly affected by the deployment of a family service member since 2001. The impact of deployment on these children may pose significant mental health risks and emotional disturbances, including depression, anxiety, and behavioral problems. However, many military children and family members do exhibit resilience and thrive throughout the deployment cycle. A modified Resiliency Model of Family Stress, Adjustment and Adaptation was used to inform further exploration of resilience and child adjustment in military children. This dissertation includes three papers, each addressing mental health and resilience in military children. First, a detailed quantitative analysis paper reviews the effect of maternal stress and mental health on child adjustment in the context of a military deployment. A longitudinal study was conducted with National Guard family members who experienced a deployment, with a focus on maternal perspectives of positive and negative child adjustment outcomes before and after a military deployment. Results indicated that maternal mental health and parenting stress significantly predicted adverse child adjustment during pre- and post-deployment. In the second paper, a review of the literature examined current evidence-based interventions to promote resilience in military families. This paper introduces the concept of resilience and reviews opportunities to incorporate strength-based skills into clinical interventions. Despite the need for interventions to address the unique needs of military children, limited programs are currently available. Recommendations for future interventions are presented. Finally, the third paper introduces a resiliency intervention for military children and discusses its pilot findings. A case series was performed to provide detailed descriptive information from intervention participants. Parent-report of child mental health revealed a reduction in total emotional and behavioral difficulties after participation in the intervention. Participants reported reduced depression, anxiety, household chaos, and parenting stress after program participation. Findings indicated adequate feasibility and acceptability from participants. In summary, these findings contribute to greater understanding of resilience and child adjustment outcomes in military children. Future work should focus on continued intervention development and evaluation to provide evidence-based programs for integration into nursing research and practice.