A comparison of anxiety levels in midlife women (aged 35–65) who are military spouses and a group of non‐military‐affiliated women

Abstract

Using the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970), a comparison of the scores of 199 midlife, military spouses was made with the scores of a sample of 74 midlife non‐military women. A total of 273 midlife women (aged 35–65) participated in the study. The women who participated in the study were from similar middle class socioeconomic backgrounds, and most were college prepared. The participants lived in both urban and rural settings. The instrument measured anxiety levels in both groups of women. The resulting scores showed the military spouses to have similar, but in some instances, slightly lower anxiety levels than their civilian counterparts. Additionally, the student i‐test indicated that the differences between the mean scores of the military and the non‐military were not statistically significant. It can be inferred from these data that there is relatively little difference in levels of anxiety between military spouses and their civilian counterparts. This may i...