News Release

Impact of parents' military deployment on children's safety and mental health

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Elsevier

A recent study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reports that following military parents' return from combat deployment, their children show increased visits for mental healthcare, physical injury, and child maltreatment consults, compared to children whose parents have not been deployed. The same types of healthcare visits were also found to be significantly higher for children of combat-injured parents.

Children of deployed parents are known to have increased mental healthcare needs, and be at increased risk for child maltreatment during period of parental deployment. The ongoing impact of parental deployments following a parents' return, and the impact of parental wartime injuries on children had not previously been studied.

Using healthcare data from the U.S. Military Health System, a group of researchers led by Dr. Elizabeth Hisle-Gorman at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, analyzed healthcare utilization patterns of 487,460 children aged 3-8. The team assessed the rate of post-deployment mental health, injury and child maltreatment visits of children whose parents did not deploy, those whose parents deployed and returned uninjured, and children whose parents deployed and returned injured.

Researchers found that children of previously deployed parents have substantially more mental healthcare and child maltreatment consults compared to children whose parents did had not been deployed. Furthermore, visit rates were consistently higher in children of combat-injured parents, compared to children of non-injured parents. Findings suggest that deployment-related risk to children continues into the post-deployment period, and that risk increases when parents return from deployment injured. Increased healthcare visits in the post deployment period also indicate that parents seek care for children affected by parental deployment and injury. Increased awareness of the impact of parental deployment and combat injury will assist health and mental healthcare providers in effectively identifying children at risk and providing needed resources where indicated.

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The article "Impact of Parent's Wartime Military Deployment and Injury on Young Children's Safety and Mental Health" by Elizabeth Hisle-Gorman, Donna Harrington, Cade M. Nylund, Kenneth P. Tercyak, Bruno J. Anthony, and Gregory H. Gorman appears in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Volume 54, Issue 4 (April 2015), published by Elsevier.

Notes for editors

Full text of the article is available to credentialed journalists upon request; contact the JAACAP Editorial Office at +1 202 587 9673 or support@jaacap.org. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Sharon Holland at +1 301 295 3578 or Sharon.holland@usuhs.edu.

All articles published in JAACAP are embargoed until the day they are published as in press corrected proofs online at http://jaacap.org/inpress. Articles cannot be publicized as in press accepted manuscripts. Contents of the publication should not be released to or by the media or government agencies prior to the embargo date.

About JAACAP

Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) is the official publication of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. JAACAP is the leading journal focusing exclusively on today's psychiatric research and treatment of the child and adolescent. Published twelve times per year, each issue is committed to its mission of advancing the science of pediatric mental health and promoting the care of youth and their families. http://www.jaacap.com

The journal's purpose is to advance research, clinical practice, and theory in child and adolescent psychiatry. It is interested in manuscripts from diverse viewpoints, including genetic, epidemiological, neurobiological, cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, social, cultural, and economic. Studies of diagnostic reliability and validity, psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological treatment efficacy, and mental health services effectiveness are encouraged. The journal also seeks to promote the well-being of children and families by publishing scholarly papers on such subjects as health policy, legislation, advocacy, culture and society, and service provision as they pertain to the mental health of children and families.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions -- among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Elsevier Research Intelligence and ClinicalKey -- and publishes over 2,500 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and more than 33,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works. Elsevier is part of RELX Group plc, a world-leading provider of information solutions for professional customers across industries.


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