Combat-injured service members and their families: the relationship of child distress and spouse-perceived family distress and disruption.

Combat injury in military service members affects both child and family functioning. This preliminary study examined the relationship of child distress postinjury to preinjury deployment-related family distress, injury severity, and family disruption postinjury. Child distress postinjury was assessed by reports from 41 spouses of combat-injured service members who had been hospitalized at two military tertiary care treatment centers. Families with high preinjury deployment-related family distress and high family disruption postinjury were more likely to report high child distress postinjury. Spouse-reported injury severity was unrelated to child distress. Findings suggest that early identification and intervention with combat-injured families experiencing distress and disruption may be warranted to support family and child health, regardless of injury severity.

Child sexual abuse and number of sexual partners in young women: the role of abuse severity, coping style, and sexual functioning.

The authors proposed and tested a model describing distinct pathways through which childhood sexual abuse (CSA) may lead to relatively low or high numbers of sexual partners in adulthood. Path analyses were conducted on survey responses of young female US Navy recruits who reported CSA (N=547). Use of avoidant strategies to cope with CSA was expected to produce higher levels of sexual problems and fewer heterosexual sex partners, whereas use of self-destructive coping strategies was expected to result in more dysfunctional sexual behavior and more heterosexual sex partners. As predicted, the effect of CSA on number of sex partners was largely mediated by coping strategies and dysfunctional sexual behavior.

Risk for intimate partner violence and child physical abuse: psychosocial characteristics of multirisk male and female Navy recruits.

This study examined psychosocial characteristics of individuals at risk for perpetrating both intimate partner violence (IPV risk) and child physical abuse (CPA risk). The sample consisted of 775 female and 592 male Navy recruits. The psychosocial variables assessed included symptoms of dysphoria, posttraumatic stress, self-dysfunction, alcohol-related problems, and drug use. IPV risk and CPA risk were positively associated with approximately 9% of the total sample considered multirisk (i.e., positive for both IPV risk and CPA risk). Results of regression analyses revealed that patterns of predictors (demographic and psychosocial variables) for IPV-risk only and CPA-risk only differed with multirisk individuals characterized by the combined predictors of both types of violence risk. Nearly half (47.2%) of the multirisk individuals were characterized by multiple (i.e., two or more) clinical elevations on the psychosocial characteristics assessed.

Building the Women's Health Research Workforce: Fostering Interdisciplinary Research Approaches in Women's Health.

BACKGROUND: The Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) program is a mentored institutional research career development program developed to support and foster the interdisciplinary research careers of men and women junior faculty in women's health and sex/gender factors. The number of scholars who apply for and receive National Institutes of Health (NIH) research or career development grants is one proximate indicator of whether the BIRCWH program is being successful in achieving its goals. PRIMARY STUDY OBJECTIVE: To present descriptive data on one metric of scholar performance-NIH grant application and funding rates. METHODS/DESIGN: Grant applications were counted if the start date was 12 months or more after the scholar's BIRCWH start date. Two types of measures were used for the outcome of interest-person-based funding rates and application-based success rates. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Grant application, person funding, and application success rates. RESULTS: Four hundred and ninety-three scholars had participated in BIRCWH as of November 1, 2012. Seventy-nine percent of BIRCWH scholars who completed training had applied for at least one competitive NIH grant, and 64% of those who applied had received at least one grant award. Approximately 68% of completed scholars applied for at least one research grant, and about half of those who applied were successful in obtaining at least one research award. Men and women had similar person funding rates, but women had higher application success rates for RoI grants. LIMITATIONS: Data were calculated for all scholars across a series of years; many variables can influence person funding and application success rates beyond the BIRCWH program; and lack of an appropriate comparison group is another substantial limitation to this analysis. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that the BIRCWH program has been successful in bridging advanced training with establishing independent research careers for scholars.

Do trauma symptoms mediate the relationship between childhood physical abuse and adult child abuse risk?

OBJECTIVE: Although the intergenerational transmission of family violence has been well documented, the mechanisms responsible for this effect have not been fully determined. The present study examined whether trauma symptoms mediate the relationship between a childhood history of child physical abuse (CPA) and adult CPA risk, and whether any such mediation was similar for women and men. METHOD: Female and male US Navy (USN) recruits (N=5,394) and college students (N=716) completed self-report measures of their history of child abuse (i.e., CPA and child sexual abuse [CSA]), exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV), current trauma symptoms, and adult CPA risk. RESULTS: As expected, there was a strong association between a childhood history of CPA and adult CPA risk. This association was significant even after controlling for demographic variables and childhood exposure to other forms of violence (CSA and IPV), and the strength of the relationship did not vary depending on demographics or exposure to other forms of violence. However, the association between a history of CPA and adult risk of CPA was stronger for individuals high in defensive avoidance compared to those low in defensive avoidance. The association between a history of CPA and adult CPA risk was largely, although not entirely, mediated by psychological trauma symptoms. Mediation was observed for both women and men in both the USN and college samples. CONCLUSIONS: Trauma symptoms associated with a history of CPA accounted for a substantial part of the relationship between a history of CPA and adult CPA risk in both women and men. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: To the extent that trauma symptoms are a mechanism by which the intergenerational transmission of child abuse occurs, intervening to reduce trauma symptoms in CPA victims has the potential of reducing their risk of continuing the cycle of violence.