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 f =
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. f f f f f
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. f
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
