Suicide Exposure and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Is Marriage a Protective Factor for Veterans?

David A. Weisenhorn; Laura M. Frey; Judy van de Venne; Julie Cerel

doi:10.1007/s10826-016-0538-y

Suicide Exposure and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Is Marriage a Protective Factor for Veterans?

David A. Weisenhorn, Laura M. Frey, Judy van de Venne, Julie Cerel

College of Social Work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Alarming numbers of military veterans end their lives each day which has a profound effect on the military population. This study examines a sample (N = 434) of suicide-exposed (i.e., personally knowing someone who has died by suicide) veterans to determine whether the proportion of individuals who report high impact from suicide exposure and those who have clinically-significant posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms is related to marital status. Using Hill’s (Social Casework 49: 139–150, 1958) ABC-X model for conceptualizing the relationships between variables, mean scores for posttraumatic stress disorder were significantly different between groups, and the odds of a married veteran reporting high-impact suicide exposure were 2.19 times lower than the odds of a single veteran reporting high-impact. Likewise, the odds of a veteran with high-impact suicide exposure having clinically-significant posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms were 10.04 times higher than veterans with low-impact suicide exposure. Findings indicate that veterans who are married are less likely to be highly-affected by another individual’s suicide. Thus, marriage is a protective factor for suicide-exposed veterans.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	161-167
Number of pages	7
Journal	Journal of Child and Family Studies
Volume	26
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-016-0538-y
State	Published - Jan 1 2017

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was in part supported by the Military Suicide Research Consortium (MSRC), an effort supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs under Award Nos. W81XWH-10-2-0178 and W81XWH-10-2-0181. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the MSRC or the Department of Defense.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Keywords

Military
PTSD
Suicide
Suicide exposure
Veteran

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Developmental and Educational Psychology
Life-span and Life-course Studies

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1007/s10826-016-0538-y

Cite this

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title = "Suicide Exposure and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Is Marriage a Protective Factor for Veterans?",

abstract = "Alarming numbers of military veterans end their lives each day which has a profound effect on the military population. This study examines a sample (N = 434) of suicide-exposed (i.e., personally knowing someone who has died by suicide) veterans to determine whether the proportion of individuals who report high impact from suicide exposure and those who have clinically-significant posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms is related to marital status. Using Hill{\textquoteright}s (Social Casework 49: 139–150, 1958) ABC-X model for conceptualizing the relationships between variables, mean scores for posttraumatic stress disorder were significantly different between groups, and the odds of a married veteran reporting high-impact suicide exposure were 2.19 times lower than the odds of a single veteran reporting high-impact. Likewise, the odds of a veteran with high-impact suicide exposure having clinically-significant posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms were 10.04 times higher than veterans with low-impact suicide exposure. Findings indicate that veterans who are married are less likely to be highly-affected by another individual{\textquoteright}s suicide. Thus, marriage is a protective factor for suicide-exposed veterans.",

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Suicide Exposure and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Is Marriage a Protective Factor for Veterans?

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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