Reporting for Double Duty: A Dyadic Perspective on the Biopsychosocial Health of Dual Military Air Force Couples

Abstract

There are approximately 1.5 million active duty service members in today's military and approximately 726,000 (56.1 %) of these individuals are married. Therefore, healthy couple functioning is important for the military community. Although there is current literature on couple functioning in non-dual military couples, there is limited research on the marital health of dual military couples. This study explored the marital health (marital satisfaction, adjustment, and quality) and stress among dual Air Force couples in relation to length of time in service, rank, deployments, and level of physiological stress. Results indicated that husbands' deployments, rank, and time in service were related to his physiological distress, wives' rank was negatively related to her marital adjustment and marital quality, and husbands' marital satisfaction was negatively related to wives' rank. Future research recommendations and implications for using a biopsychosocial approach for assessing dual military couples are provided.