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The Role of the Military Family in the Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Ill and Injured Service Members

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Book cover War and Family Life

Part of the book series: Risk and Resilience in Military and Veteran Families ((RRMV))

Abstract

It has long been known that social support plays an important role as a protective factor for traumatic stress and associated psychopathology, but there are many unanswered questions about specific aspects of social support that may impact recovery following injury/illness. The present study examines the impact of illness and injury on serving members’ family relationships and explores the impact of these relationships on their recovery and rehabilitation. Analyses of data based on injured members’ reports indicate that the role of spouses was found to be critical in initial recognition of the members’ illness/injury and in motivating military members to seek help. Furthermore, the specific factors that may impede the spouse’s ability to provide adequate support were identified. These findings provide important information for planning early intervention strategies that incorporate spouses of ill/injured service members in order to reduce the negative impacts of injury on the marital relationship and to enhance the spouse’s ability to provide health-enhancing support.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Given the experiences reported, it seemed that most of the interviewees had suffered from some form of mental illness.

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  1. Defence Research and Development Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Sanela Dursun Ph.D. & Julie Coulthard Ph.D.

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  1. Sanela Dursun Ph.D.
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  2. Julie Coulthard Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Sanela Dursun Ph.D. .

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  1. Department of Human Development & Family Studies, Purdue University, Military Family Research Institute, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

    Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth

  2. Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

    David S. Riggs

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Dursun, S., Coulthard, J. (2016). The Role of the Military Family in the Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Ill and Injured Service Members. In: MacDermid Wadsworth, S., Riggs, D. (eds) War and Family Life. Risk and Resilience in Military and Veteran Families. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21488-7_14

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