Military trauma and its sequel in families of Bedouin servicemen

Abstract

Posttraumatic responses of veterans have an adverse impact on the family unit. These impacts include a variety of psychiatric, emotional, and behavioral problems in the veteran's partner and children. Despite the increased attention given today to the central role of the family in the aftermath of trauma, studies in families of non-Western minority servicemen almost do not exist. The current study examined the associations between veterans’ posttraumatic symptoms and familial distress in an ethnic minority sample of 112 families of Bedouin members of the Israeli Defense Forces. Specifically, we have studied the relationship between the men's posttraumatic symptoms, wife's psychological symptoms, and maternal reports about children's wellbeing. Results showed that while fathers’ posttraumatic symptoms were related to their wives’ psychological distress, they were not related to maternal reports about children's problems. However, mothers with higher levels of depression and anxiety tended to report more emotional and behavioral problems of their children. This study sheds light on the various trajectories by which military trauma affects different family members in a traditional, non-clinical population, and emphasizes the need to address trauma from a systemic perspective that goes beyond the individualistic approach to posttraumatic stress disorder.

Keywords:

• Bedouin
• ethnic minority
• family
• military
• trauma

Notes on contributors

Ortal Slobodin, Ph.D, is a clinical psychologist and a researcher at i-psy, a Dutch organization that specializes in providing culturally sensitive mental health services. Her primary research interests are minority mental health, psychotraumatology, and culturally adapted interventions.

Yael Caspi is a licensed clinical psychologist and a researcher, specializing in traumatic stress and cross-cultural mental health. She received her M.A. degree in clinical psychology from the Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, in Israel; and her Sc.D. degree from the Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, in Boston, Massachusetts, where she studied the psychiatric and functional impact of refugee trauma. Dr. Caspi is the director of the Veterans' Outpatient Psychiatric Services at the Department of Psychiatry in the Rambam Medical Health Center in Israel. She has studied, lectured and written extensively about trauma and post-traumatic stress among Bedouin servicemen in the Israel Defense Forces. In addition, she teaches at the University of Haifa and has a private practice.

Prof. Ehud Klein is a Psychiatrist who graduated from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and completed his training in Psychiatry at the Rambam Medical center, and a research fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda Maryland (US). After his return from the US, Professor Klein served several years as deputy Chairman for Research and Academic affairs, and became Chairman of the Department in 1993. In addition to his clinical position as head of the department, Professor Klein is an active researcher. His focus of research in the last years has been on traumatic stress in general and Post-traumatic stress disorder in particular, and in Transcranial magnetic brain stimulations. Professor Klein is the recipient of numerous research grants and has published extensively in leading journals in his field.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by a grant from the United Jewish Appeal Federation of New York as part of their community-based trauma relief initiative.