This study included 325 veteran women who were victims of rape or sexual assault while in the military. Studying these women, researchers sought to measure PTSD and other mental health issues that resulted from sexual assault or rape. The findings of this research showed that a large percentage of the women in the study suffered PTSD due to sexual assault while in the military and that overall, there needs to be better programs and rules in place in order to prevent such things from happening. The major limitation of this study was the demographic characteristic the sample represented in that, broadening the horizon in future research may improve researchers’ results to provide stronger empirical evidence. This is so important because rape in the military is absolutely atrocious so finding out more about this.
This study examined 184 men who sen/ed in the Middle East and had a child between the ages of 4-13 and had a partner. The purpose of this study was to measure the relationship between a service person’s deployment and range of other factors, specifically PTSD. For this experiment, researchers hypothesized that service men and women will actively pursue avoidant behaviors that are negatively correlated to them having PTSD and expressing it in family settings as a result of their time in the Middle East. For this study, the participants were video recorded in order to gather data to observe service members” experiential avoidance and how it correlated to other symptoms Researchers found that avoidance was positively associated with withdrawal and distress. Symptoms such as PTSD were observed and were found to have a negative correlation with positive behaviors.
The above articles articulate the affect that PTSD has on service members for two very distinct situations. In the first situation the subjects of the study are women who have been sexually abused, raped, or molested while on active duty. In the second situation the subjects are men who served in the Middle East and participated in a study, which measured the role of which the time spent overseas, during active duty, affects the participants family life. In the first study there were 325 veteran women who participated in the experiment compared to the 184 male participants in the second study. Given the number of participants, I would say that the first study had a more appropriate sample count to represent the population and the results, based on sample size alone, would be more accurate than the second study. There were more factors involved in the selection of the participants as well.
In the first study, researchers had fewer criteria when selecting the women to participate. For example, if a woman had been a victim to sexual abuse, and served in the military, the women in this group were selected based on demographic criteria and once selected were then split up into groups given the time of which they served in relation to 9/11. For the second study, the men were selected based on their demographics, income, if they had a child between 4-13, and had to have served in the National Guard or Reserve military service who had experienced one of the following conflict with their partner, OlF/OEF/OND. Once selected the participants were tested. In the first study there was a 6-prong recruitment strategy in order to reach all the sexual assault female victims, in Southern California, order for them question the women about their sexual assault history while serving for the military.
In the second study, once the men were chosen for the experiment, there were obsen/ed in a naturalistic setting where videos were recorded of interactions between the service member who is hypothesized to be suffering from PTSD and their partner and child. Researchers of the second experiment knew to work around the avoidance strategy exhibited in past research, by the service member. Both these studies resulted in evidence supporting their hypothesis and further supporting the effect of PTSD on service members. In the first study, it was found that sexual assault, to several different degrees, plays a huge role in PTSD of women in the military affected by these events. It was also found in the second study that men who sen/ed in the Middle East exhibited actions such as avoidance, to try to defer away from their PTSD symptoms, as a result of serving.
To conclude, both these studies show that active duty has a lingering effect on a person causing them to suffer from PTSD and other related anxiety and stress disorders. These findings leave open the discussion for better pre-sen/ice mental health care for both men and women coming off of active duty. When individuals have a difficult time transitioning back to their normal life as a result of events which took place while serving for the military make it is difficult for the person to accept themselves which is evident in the second study where the men exhibited avoidance behaviors. Ultimately, PTSD in such masses and so clearly and easily study able, is a red flag for future research and development to deploy better practices and solutions for active members of the military as well as reserve military members too.
