Military Deployment Effects on Family Members

Gibbs, Martin, Kupper, and Johnson (2007) examined the relationship between military deployment that involved combat and prevalence of child maltreatment in relations of US military who had one or more incidences of child maltreatment. This study revealed 42 percent increase of child maltreatment during deployment than in incidence when there was no deployment. This study focused on the families of soldiers enlisted for military deployment with a minimum of one incident of child maltreatment. Concurrently, the frequency of child neglect was higher during military deployment, whereas the frequencies of physical assault were down. The frequencies of extreme or moderate child maltreatment were greater than 60 percent during military deployments than when there was no military deployment. In addition, Gibbs et al. (2007) showed that the increase in rate of child maltreatment attributed to female spouses was almost four times higher during deployment periods than when there was no deployment.