Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Soldiers’ Experiences of Being Married and Serving in the British Army

ABSTRACT

Research suggests certain aspects of military life, especially operational deployments, may negatively impact military marriages. However, much of this research is from the United States and uses deductive quantitative methods. Qualitative research investigating the lived experiences of forming and maintaining marriages was conducted with six male U.K. Army personnel. Semistructured interviews were analyzed, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, identifying five themes, each representing different dilemmas the soldiers’ had to balance to maintain successful marriages and Army careers. These five themes are best understood as practical, emotional, and cultural dilemmas that can be alleviated with practical and emotional methods; such factors could be used to build resilience in soldier’s marriages. These possible resilience factors could shape the content of interventions to increase resiliency in military marriages.     

Relationship Difficulties Among U.K. Military Personnel: Impact of Sociodemographic,Military, and Deployment-Related Factors

Military work, especially operational deployments, may impact the romantic relationships of military personnel. Using a subsample of 7,581 participants from a cohort study of U.K. military personnel (data collected between 2007 and 2009), the prevalence of relationship difficulties and associations with sociodemographic, military-, and deployment-related characteristics was examined. Most participants did not report experiencing relationship difficulties. Adjusted regression analyses indicate that childhood adversity, limited support for and from partners, being in unmarried relationships, financial problems, deploying for more than 13 months in 3 years, and work being above trade, ability, and experience were key factors associated with relationship difficulties. The likelihood of U.K. military personnel experiencing relationship difficulties is increased because of personal vulnerabilities that may be exacerbated in the military context.     

Statewide dissemination of trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT)

Despite evidence linking childhood trauma to subsequent social, emotional, psychological, and cognitive problems, many children who have experienced trauma do not receive mental health treatment that has been proven to be effective. Large-scale dissemination of evidence-based practices (EBPs) is one possible solution to enhance the current negative state of mental health treatment for these children. This article describes a dissemination effort of an EBP (i.e., Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy [TF-CBT]) for childhood symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder throughout Arkansas. The effort targeted mental health professionals within child advocacy centers and community mental health centers across the state. The article describes the process of dissemination and implementation. Lessons learned and recommendations for future dissemination efforts are highlighted.     

An Intervention to Decrease Heavy Episodic Drinking in College Students: The Effect of Executive Function Training

Abstract

Objective: To develop and test a planning-ability, executive function (EF) intervention to reduce heavy episodic drinking (HED). Participants: Fifty-five heavy-drinking, first-year college students, recruited from May to October 2012. Methods: Participants were randomly allocated to an experimental or active control group and then completed the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test–Consumption and demographic questions. Over 1 week, the experimental group completed 4 progressively harder planning tasks, whereas the control group completed 4 easier, consistent-difficulty planning tasks. Participants then recorded their daily alcohol consumption for 2 weeks. Results: As hypothesized, both mean and maximum per-occasion alcohol consumption was significantly reduced in the experimental group compared with the control group. There were no significant differences in frequency of HED. Conclusions: These results provide initial support for the use of a planning-ability intervention in decreasing per-occasion alcohol consumption. Future researchers can examine the mechanism of effect, the long-term efficacy, and the specific EFs involved in other aspects of alcohol consumption.     

Social Environment Contexts of Trait Emotional Intelligence

Two studies set out to provide information regarding social environment contexts of trait emotional intelligence. In an initial exploratory study, participants with higher emotional intelligence were associated with close others of high emotional intelligence. A second longitudinal study examined the effect of social environments comprising higher or lower emotional intelligence on changes in emotional intelligence of residents in these environments. This study assessed the emotional intelligence and subjective well-being of residents of colleges at the start of a semester and again three months later. A higher composite college residence emotional intelligence index predicted an increase in participants' emotional intelligence and positive affect. These effects were especially strong for first-semester residents. The results offer new information regarding social environment contexts of trait emotional intelligence and extend findings regarding contagion of emotion and transmission of individual differences in complex emotion processing.     

Markers of unsustainable gambling for early detection of at-risk online gamblers

In this work we propose novel markers for identifying at-risk gamblers based on the concept of sustainability. The first hypothesis here verified is that problematic gamblers oscillate between intervals of increasing wager size followed by rapid drops, probably because they exceed their economic sustainability limits. Due to the non-periodic nature of these fluctuations, the proposed marker detects a certain occurring feature, such as a rapid drop in wager size, over a wide range of fluctuation periods, drop sizes and shapes. The second marker, counting the number of games the gambler is involved in, aims at predicting possible consequences of an exceeding amount of time dedicated to gambling, that ultimately causes social and relational breakdowns. In the experimental phase we demonstrate how the adoption of these markers allows for identifying larger segments of high- and medium-risk gamblers with respect to previous research on actual betting behaviours.     

Intra-Individual Differences and Relationship-Specificity of Mentalising in Early Adolescence

There is increasing interest in understanding how relationships promote children's understanding of their own and others' thoughts and feelings. A key question in this research is whether children's ability and motivation to represent and nderstand anothers' thoughts and feelings is a function of the quality of the relationship with that individual or, alternatively, a more general characteristic of the child that is similarly expressed across relationship contexts. The current study sought to extend previous research by assessing mentalising behaviour in early adolescence and examining intra-individual differences in adolescents' mentalising behaviour about self and other in different relationships. The research design exploited the natural experiment of the secondary school, in which children develop very diverse relationships with different teachers. In the spring of the academic year, a vignette-based, semi-structured interview was administered, and students' understanding and attributions of mental states of their most and least liked teachers were coded using a newly developed system. Results indicated that there were significant intra-individual differences in adolescents' mentalising; the psychological sophistication with which adolescents understood and described another's behaviour was predicted from the affective quality of the relationship. In addition, there was significantly less incongruity or distortion in adolescents' mentalising about their most liked teacher compared with their least liked teacher, highlighting the need to consider not only the presence but also the 'accuracy' of mentalising.     

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS): What's in it for Social Security?

This article explores the implications of the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) for social security. It examines what bearing the GATS has, or will have, on social security policy and administration and what the effects might be. These questions are explored through a review of legal, political and policy issues relating to the status of social security within the GATS and the consequences of applying the Agreement's provisions to social security. The discussion distinguishes between the supply of social security services on the one hand and access to and use of social security services on the other hand. It also distinguishes between substantive questions regarding the scope of the GATS and procedural issues regarding governments' scheduling practices. I argue that although the GATS does not yet have a direct material bearing on social security policy and provision, it may do so in the future. However, it is too early to ascertain what the nature or magnitude of the effects might be. More generally, the discussion highlights the difficulties of securing multilateral cooperation among countries with different levels of "development", strategic interests and priorities, and social security systems.     

A new look at the health and homeless experience of a cohort of five-year olds

Homelessness is increasing and health workers and others need to be ever vigilant about the risk that this has on children's health. What is that risk and what are children's experiences of homelessness? A retrospective case note study was carried out to compare the health of a group of five-year olds who had experienced homelessness and compare them with matched ‘non-homeless’ controls. A home interview questionnaire was used to give a profile of the children's housing experience and the health issues faced during their time in temporary accommodation. Fifty-three cases when compared with 41 controls showed a statistically greater prevalence of child protection issues and an increased number of health needs identified at the school nurse health appraisal. The housing profile identified that the case children moved homes many times (37 per cent more than five times), were homeless much longer than the officially registered period (67 per cent more than 12 months) and 61 per cent were made homeless through domestic violence. The study reinforces the need for us to acknowledge important environmental stress and to continue to advocate for this group of disadvantaged children.