Associations of military divorce with mental, behavioral, and physical health outcomes

BMC Psychiatry

Table 2 Prevalence of health and military outcomes by marital status^a

	Recently divorced		Stayed married		Total
	N = 1545		N = 27,769		N = 29,314
Outcome^b	n	(%)	n	(%)	n	(%)
Mental health
New-onset posttraumatic stress disorder^b	74	4.79	597	2.15	671	2.29
New-onset depression^c	47	3.04	431	1.55	478	1.63
Anxiety/Panic^c	47	3.04	476	1.72	523	1.78
Behavioral
Smoking initiation	15	0.97	125	0.45	140	0.48
Smoking recidivism	53	3.43	685	2.47	738	2.52
New-onset alcohol-related problems^c	62	4.01	727	2.62	789	2.69
New-onset binge drinking^d	183	11.84	2846	10.25	3029	10.33
Physical health
New-onset hypertension	84	5.44	1646	5.93	1730	5.90
New-onset diabetes	8	0.52	205	0.74	213	0.73
Weight change^e
Extreme weight loss	46	2.98	572	2.06	618	2.11
Moderate weight loss	169	10.94	3013	10.85	3182	10.85
Stable weight	572	37.02	12490	44.98	13062	44.56
Moderate weight gain	522	33.79	7949	28.63	8471	28.90
Extreme weight gain	120	7.77	1634	5.88	1754	5.98
Functional health
Mental component summary score^f
Lowest 15^th percentile	242	15.66	2761	9.94	3003	10.24
Middle 70^th percentile	1061	68.67	19563	70.45	20624	70.36
Highest 15^th percentile	221	14.30	4999	18.00	5220	17.81
Physical component summary score^f
Lowest 15^th percentile	211	13.66	3633	13.08	3884	13.11
Middle 70^th percentile	1031	66.73	19928	71.76	20959	71.50
Highest 15^th percentile	282	18.25	3762	13.55	4044	13.80
Military related outcomes
Deployment^g	541	38.26	8693	31.30	9234	31.64
Military separation^h	205	13.27	3929	14.15	4134	14.10

^a Marital status assessed from baseline to first follow-up, where those who were “recently divorced” were married at their baseline survey and got divorced before their follow-up survey, those who “stayed married” were married throughout the study period. The reference category is “stayed married”
^b All outcomes were significantly associated with exposure at p < 0.05, except for new-onset diabetes (p = 0.08) and military separation (p = 0.33)
^c Posttraumatic stress disorder is defined using the PTSD checklist-civilian version, specific criteria with a cutoff of 50
^d Assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire
^e Binge drinking is defined as reporting 5 or more drinks per occasion for men or 4 or more drinks per occasion for women on at least 1 day during the past year
^f Extreme weight loss (≥10 % loss), moderate weight loss (between 3 % and 10 % loss), stable weight (within ± 3 %), moderate weight gain (between 3 % and 10 % gain), and extreme weight gain (≥10 % gain)
^g Mental component summary score and physical component summary score are obtained from the short form 36 question health survey for veterans (SF-36 V)
^h Deployment was assessed from baseline until the follow-up for those in the “stayed married” and in the 3 years following divorce for the “recently divorced” group
ⁱ Separation was assessed after the date of the completion of the follow-up survey

ISSN: 1471-244X