Biopsychosocial Health of Military Members and their Spouses

Abstract

Military members and their spouses experience unique stressors compared to civilian couples, making them vulnerable for physical, psychological, and relational health concerns. A systematic literature search, exhaustive search, cross-sectional study, and policy brief were completed to explore the biopsychosocial health of military members. Literature trends reveal that the role of the military spouse is no longer secondary, but is crucial to the health of the military and veteran couple. It is recommended that spouses be a part of the biopsychosocial assessment that service members receive and also be assessed themselves for stress derived symptoms such as hypertension, post traumatic stress, and depression. Assessments for health should occur sooner after deployment and at more frequent intervals given the dynamic nature of stress on health over time. The health of service members and veterans is couched within their personal and familial relationships, thus marriage and family therapists/medical family therapists are well prepared to attend to the dynamics between health, stress, and relational well-being across the lifespan of military and veteran couples. Recommendations for future research on military couples includes a need for couple-centered interventions using experimental methodology, a broader variety of interventions that target couples, and appropriate dyadic survey and assessment tools to determine the efficacy of couple's interventions for military, reserve, and veteran populations.