Combat disclosure in intimate relationships: Mediating the impact of partner support on posttraumatic stress.

Abstract

Although previous research has shown a negative relation between partner support and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity among military service members following deployment, the mediating mechanisms of this effect remain poorly understood. This study examined willingness to disclose deployment-and combat-related experiences as a mediating mechanism underlying the linkage between intimate partner support and PTSD symptom severity in a sample of 76 U.S. Air Force service members deployed to Iraq in a year-long, high-risk mission. Airmen's reports of overall social support, and partner support specifically, significantly predicted concurrent postdeployment PTSD symptom severity. Subsequent mediation analyses demonstrated that level of disclosure of deployment-and combat-related experiences by service members to their intimate partners accounted for a significant portion of the relation between partner support and postdeployment PTSD symptom severity. The level of Airmen's disclosure was also inversely related to levels of relationship distress. Implications of these findings for prevention and intervention strategies and for further research are discussed.

Posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, levels of social support, and emotional hiding in returning veterans

“…Higher levels of emotional hiding from immediate family (defined as spouse or significant other, children) and friends were associated with increased odds of screening positive for PTSD; for both sources, a one unit increase was associated with 33 percent greater odds of a positive PTSD screen. Although we were unable to run mediational analyses due to our study's cross-sectional design, our findings regarding hiding from immediate family (defined as spouse or significant other, children) may be consistent with recent literature showing that military servicemembers' reluctance to disclose deployment and combat-related experiences mediates the relationship between intimate partner support and PTSD symptom severity [25]. With respect to hiding from the community, each unit increase on the measure was associated with a 24 percent increase in the odds of a positive PTSD screen.…”

Longitudinal Associations Between PTSD Symptoms and Dyadic Conflict Communication Following a Severe Motor Vehicle Accident

“…First, there was an exclusive use of self-report measures of PTSD symptoms and conflict communication. Although self-report of PTSD symptoms is the norm in this literature (e.g., Allen et al, 2010; Balderrama-Durbin et al, 2013; Campbell & Renshaw, 2013; Erbes et al, 2011), the use of gold-standard clinician measurement of PTSD symptoms and observer ratings of couples’ communication in future research will help to decrease shared method variance resulting from the reliance on self-report measures. Second and relatedly, there was no partner report of one’s own or the trauma survivor’s PTSD symptoms.…”

“…For example, it has been shown that, among service members, trauma-related disclosure mediates the cross-sectional association between social support and PTSD symptoms (Balderrama-Durbin et al, 2013) and the longitudinal association between PTSD symptoms, notably emotional numbing, and relationship satisfaction (Campbell & Renshaw, 2013). However, the extent to which disclosure processes operate in civilian samples in the early months after trauma exposure is unknown.…”

Intimate Partner Communication From the War Zone: A Prospective Study of Relationship Functioning, Communication Frequency, and Combat Effectiveness

“…Other couples might prefer to be updated on each other's respective challenges as a way of offering emotional or instrumental support or as a way of maintaining as much shared decision‐making and sense of their couple identity as circumstances permit. Couples may benefit from anticipating which stresses to share (e.g., children's sicknesses at home or the service member's frustrations with chain‐of‐command down range) and which ones to keep separate (e.g., struggles with in‐laws or high‐risk missions) including disclosure of combat experiences (Balderrama‐Durbin et al, in press). For some service members, communication capacities may be limited regularly or periodically—for example, because of restricted communication facilities at a forward operating base (FOB) or a mission in an unsecured area—and anticipating such circumstances ahead of time may mitigate against misinterpretation (e.g., as disinterest or serious injury).…”