Abstract
AimTo investigate the probability of marriage and divorce among Swedish military veterans deployed to Afghanistan relative to non-deployed matched comparators.Study design and settingMatched cohort study in Sweden.ParticipantsMilitary veterans were identified through Swedish military personnel registers regarding foreign deployments, and comparators from the Military Service Conscription Register (1969–2013). Of 1,882,411 eligible conscripts, 7041 had served in Afghanistan at some point in time between 2002 and 2013. To each military veteran, up to 5 non-deployed comparators who underwent conscription were matched by age, sex, psychological assessment, cognitive ability, psychiatric history and social characteristics. After matching there were 4896 (82%) unmarried and 1069 (18%) married deployed military veterans. The main outcome was marriage or divorce after deployment to Afghanistan. Data on marital status were retrieved from Statistics Sweden until December 31, 2014.ResultsDuring a median follow-up of 4.1 years after deployment of married individuals, 124 divorces were observed among deployed military veterans and 399 in the matched non-deployed comparator cohort (277 vs. 178 per 10,000 person-years; adjusted hazard ratio 1.61, 95%CI 1.31–1.97). During a median follow-up of 4.7 years after deployment in the unmarried cohort, 827 new marriages were observed among deployed military veterans and 4363 in the matched non-deployed comparators cohort (399 vs. 444 per 10,000 person-years; adjusted hazard ratio 0.89, 95%CI 0.83–0.96).ConclusionMilitary veterans were more likely to divorce and less likely to marry after deployment compared with matched non-deployed comparators.
Highlights
We identified 6072 military veterans with deployment to Afghanistan between January 1, 2002, and December 31, 2013
This study investigated the association of deployment to Afghanistan within International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the post-deployment incidence of marriage and divorce among Swedish military veterans
US veterans serving in Vietnam, for example, do not seem to have an increased divorce rate than Americans in general, even though a strong association between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and divorce has been reported in this population.[2,4]
Summary
There is a general belief that military veterans struggle with intimate relations and re-adjustment to family life after returning from foreign deployment.[1,2] While there is agreement about the negative impact of combat exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on romantic relations and family life,[1,3,4,5,6] the effect of foreign military deployment on marriage is debated.[1,2,7,8] A systematic review and a study of the entire male active US military population between the years 1998 and 2005 found that divorce rates among US military service members appear to be unchanged by the military operations in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) and Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom), when comparing divorce rates before versus after the wars started, as well as in direct comparison with civilians matched by age, ethnicity, employment status, and education.[1,9] In the study by Negrusa et al of US military veterans, an increased divorce risk by deployment duration was found after several confounding factors were accounted for, an effect which was more pronounced for women.[8]. European veterans from the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan generally have lower levels of PTSD than their US counterparts, which could be at least partly explained by differences in combat exposure during deployment.[10,11,12,13,14] It is reasonable to assume limited postdeployment consequences on marriage and divorce among European veterans, given the unchanged divorce rates among US veterans. No such investigation among European veterans has yet been published in the scientific literature
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
