Elucidating the Association Between Military Sexual Trauma Types and Different Types of Risky Behaviors

ABSTRACT

Military sexual harassment (MSH) and assault (MSA) are associated with serious mental and physical health outcomes among military personnel and veterans. However, less is known about how these experiences relate to risky, impulsive, and health-compromising behaviors. The goal of the current study was to assess MSH and MSA in relation to a wide range of risky behaviors. Participants were 512 veterans in the community (M age = 41.36, 71.3% male, 71.3% white) who completed an online survey via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Compared to veterans who reported MSH only or no history of MST, veterans with a MSA history reported greater past-month risky behavior engagement, both overall and for specific behaviors, including problematic use of alcohol, drugs, gambling, technology, risky sexual behaviors, eating behaviors, illegal behaviors, reckless spending, physically aggressive behaviors, verbally aggressive behaviors, property destruction, reckless driving, non-suicidal self-injury, and suicidal behavior. Our findings emphasize the importance of differentiating between MSH and MSA when detecting and intervening with veterans at risk for engaging in risky behaviors.

KEYWORDS:

• Military sexual trauma
• risky behaviors
• military populations

Disclosure statement

This material is based upon work supported in part by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Rocky Mountain MIRECC for Suicide Prevention. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policy of the VA or the United States Government.

Additional information

Funding

Work on this paper by the second author (NHW) was supported, in part, by National Institute on Drug Abuse grant K23DA039327.