As we have discussed in previous conversations, you know that I have always
been passionate about human behavior, especially during adulthood and among
military veterans and people who have experienced significant crises and traumas
in their lives. In this particular area, I’m always wondering, and searching for
answers regarding questions like; why some veterans react in different ways even
when they experienced same traumatic situations and living similar lives and
circumstances? For this matter, how life’s crises affect people in different ways?
What is the chemistry, cognitive skills and personality of people who commit acts
of violence to other people or who harm themselves? Being a veteran myself and
seeing during many years different behaviors on people who underwent same
past traumatic situations and having similar current lives, it is my empiric point of
view that there are deeper factors affecting people’s behaviors than the actual
mere traumatic event.
I would like to share with you two recent professional research articles that I
found valuable on this area from peer-reviewed journals containing these two key
terms: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and life, these articles bring new
insight to my point of view about different and critical factors that impact
veterans’ behaviors other than the traumatic event.
Vujanovic et al. (2022) conducted their research focusing on determining the
association of distress intolerance (DI) and anxiety sensitivity (AS) with PSTD and
substance (alcohol & drug) use among military veterans. Their study included 120
military veterans, primarily male (98.3%) with a mean age of d = 41.41 and
standard deviation of SD = 10.77. The data was collected as part of their intake
evaluation during their psychological services to a PTSD and substance use
disorder (SUD) specialty clinic from 2016 to 2019 by mental health clinicians. A 5-
point Likert-type scale was using to measure the following variables of interest:
PTSD checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), alcohol use disorder identification test (AUDIT),
drug use disorder identification test (DUDIT), distress intolerance index (DII), and
the anxiety sensitivity index-3 (ASI-3). And the analysis of the data was done using
SPSS version 26; determining means, standard deviations, distributions, and zero-
order correlations. The asymmetric bootstrapping mediation procedures were
used to test the two separate hypothesized models, finding that PTSD symptom
severity was related to alcohol use severity via AS, but not DI, and vice versa,
PTSD symptom severity was related to drug use severity via DI, but not AS. These
results were partially consistent with the hypotheses of this research and brough
a new insight in my view about factors that affect life’s behavior, in this case
alcohol and drug use based on distress intolerance and anxiety sensitivity.
The second research was conducted to determine prediction of future intimate
partner violence (IPV) among soldiers and veterans based on neurocognitive
performance, participating 217 couples; warzone veterans and partners (Chiu et
al., 2022). The data collected was done from 6-8 years prior and post deployment
leveraging the Neurocognition Deployment Health Study (NDHS) where surveys
assessed traumatic brain injury (TBI) history, PTSD, depression, alcohol use,
neurocognitive performance, and IPV perpetration. Regression analyses were used
as statistical test finding that PTSD, depression, problematic alcohol use, TBI,
education and age considerably contributed to psychological IPV perpetration, but
not physical. Additionally low postdeployment neurocognitive performance
predicted higher psychological and physical IPV perpetration. Chiu et al. (2022)
results partially supported this research first hypothesis: health factors predict
psychological but not physical IPV perpetration; but support the second
hypothesis about neurocognitive performance predicting psychological and
physical IPV perpetration. d d d d d
Both articles deeply strengthened my understanding of the field of PTSD, life’s
crises impact, and military people and veterans’ behaviors based on other very
important factors that surround their lives which supported my opinion and call
for deeper study in this area to understand the immense opportunities to help this
sample population.
I am very interested to hear from you about any comments and further thoughts
in this area. Perhaps this area can benefit from your expertise and experience.
References
Chiu, C., Gnall, K., Pless Kaiser, A., Taft, C. T., Franz, M. R., Lee, L. O., & Vasterling,
J. J. (2022). Neurocognitive performance predicts future partner violence among
U.S. Iraq- and Afghanistan-deployed Army soldiers and veterans. Psychology of
Violence. https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000408
Vujanovic, A. A., McGrew, S. J., Walton, J. L., & Raines, A. M. (2022).
Posttraumatic stress and substance use among military veterans: Associations
with distress intolerance and anxiety sensitivity. Addictive Behaviors, 126, 107177.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.107177
