The psychological status of U.S. Army soldiers during recent military operations.

Author: Stuart, John A., Halverson, Ronald R.

Source:
Military Medicine, Vol 162(11), Nov 1997: 737-743
Determined whether deployment and gender had an effect on levels of symptom measures by comparing general psychological symptoms measures on all Brief Symptom Inventory symptom dimensions and the Global Severity Index from samples of 8,884 male and 1,279 female soldiers (mean age 26.3 yrs) during deployment to operations in the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Kuwait, Haiti, and BosniNondeployed samples included 853 male and 486 female (mean age 25 and 26 yrs, respectively) soldiers. Results indicate that soldiers who deployed to the Persian Gulf, Somalia, and Bosnia had significantly elevated measures of general psychological distress vs nondeployed soldiers. Gender difference had little to no effect on reported symptom measures among deployed soldier samples. All female soldiers, whether deployed or not, had elevated measures of interpersonal sensitivity and somatization symptoms. Further research is warranted to address which factors, to include yet not be limited to mission, life events-related, and physical symptoms, may relate to why some deployments are more stressful than others on Army soldiers.