Protective Buffering by Service Members During Military Deployments: Associations with Psychological Distress and Relationship Functioning

Publication Date

6-2020

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology

Keywords

Protective buffering, Couples, Marriage, Deployment, Military

Abstract

To shield a romantic partner from potential distress due to stressors occurring during deployment, service members (SMs) may engage in protective buffering, or withholding information or concerns from a romantic partner. This study utilized data from 54 couples collected before, during, and after a military deployment to assess whether SMs engaged in protective buffering while deployed and the possible associations between buffering and psychological, relationship, and contextual factors. Only 2% of SMs indicated never engaging in protective buffering during a deployment. In bivariate analyses, only partners’ psychological distress prior to deployment was significantly associated (negatively) with protective buffering. In multilevel models with time nested within individuals, and individuals nested within couples, higher buffering was associated with less partner distress during deployment, but was also associated with higher SM distress both during and after deployment. In these multilevel models, protective buffering was not significantly associated with SM or partner marital satisfaction.

Copyright Date

1-7-2019

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by Family Process Institute. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:

Carter S. P., Renshaw K. D., Curby T. W., Allen E. S., Markman H. J., & Stanley S. M. (2020). Protective buffering by service members during military deployments: associations with psychological distress and relationship functioning. Family Process, 59(2), 525–536. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12426

Rights Holder

Family Process Institute

Provenance

Received from CHORUS

Language

English (eng)

Publication Title

Family Process

Volume

59(2)

First Page

525

Last Page

536

ISSN

1545-5300

PubMed ID

30615191

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