There was a specific effect of deployment on mental health for a small minority. Questionnaires eliciting stress symptoms gave substantial overestimations of the rate of PTSD.

No abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine meaning as a mediator between perceived threat and posttraumatic stress responses among a sample of 1,561 veterans who participated in war or peacekeeping operations. Data were collected by questionnaire. Path analysis was performed to assess the expected relationships between the observed variables. Meaning in terms of distrust and personal benefits partially mediated the relation between perceived threat and posttraumatic stress responses. Distrustful beliefs about others and the world were strongly associated with perceived threat, as well as intrusive and avoidant thoughts. Creating meaning in terms of a positive worldview appears to be an important mission after military deployment.j asp_702 61..81

The shared experiences of war are commonly known to forge strong bonds among the participating soldiers. Through focus groups (N = 36) and a quantitative survey (N = 340), this study explores the bonding effect of United Nations peacekeeping among Dutch peacekeeping veterans. The veterans generally experience strong bonds with members of their former military unit, which are expressed in the need to exchange memories, share feelings, and renew contacts with former unit members. Peacekeepers younger than 35 years of age and older than 55 experience stronger bonding and have more actual contact with former unit members. This is true as well for veterans who have been deployed recently (less than 5 years ago) or more than 25 years ago. Social bonding seems especially strong when veterans look back on their mission experiences either very positively or very negatively.

From this finding we concluded that 10--25 years post-deployment, Dutch peacekeeping veterans do not show more psychological distress than the general Dutch population. In addition, we did not find a significant association between trauma exposure 10--25 years ago and current BSI scores. Moreover, trauma-exposure explained only 9% of the variance in psychological distress. Thus, although military peacekeeping operations may have a strong impact on the lives of soldiers, in this group of veterans they do not seem to have caused severe psychological distress10--25 years after deployment.