The Transition Mapping Study -Understanding the Transition Process for Service Personnel Returning to Civilian Life
Abstract: Since the Armed Forces Covenant was published in 2000, there has been increased interest in the process of helping Service people transition from the Armed Forces into civilian life. In 2006 this process was formalised when the Ministry of Defence published its Strategy for Veterans. The Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT), which has been set up to improve the transition process, commissioned The Futures Company to review existing research, to understand how the transition process currently works, how it is viewed by stakeholders and by recent Service leavers, to develop a model that quantified the costs of poor transition to the UK as a whole, and to make recommendations on how to reduce the number of poor transitions. The research focussed on fulltime personnel, not reservists. Transitioning from military service into civilian life is inevitable for almost all Armed Forces personnel; only a tiny proportion proceeds through to a full career. Most transitions are successful. One of the reasons for this is because of the resources invested in them by the Armed Forces. At the same time, a “good transition” is undefined. For the purposes of this project we developed with help from stakeholders the following definition: “A good transition is one that enables ex-Service personnel to be sufficiently resilient to adapt successfully to civilian life, both now and in the future. This resilience includes financial, psychological, and emotional resilience, and encompasses the ex-Service person and their immediate families.”
Abstract: Disordered eating is a prevalent and relevant health concern that remains understudied among U.S. military veterans. Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is a newly recognized feeding and eating disorder characterized by overly restrictive eating due to (a) picky eating, (b) lack of appetite, and (c) fear of aversive consequences related to eating. The Nine-Item ARFID Screen (NIAS) is a recently developed ARFID screening tool with initial validation studies demonstrating psychometric support. However, the psychometric properties of the NIAS have not been investigated in a veteran sample. To advance our understanding of ARFID screening tools that may be appropriate for use in veterans, the present study examined the factor structure of the NIAS using survey data from a large national sample of recently separated veterans (N = 1,486). Measurement invariance across key subgroups was tested in addition to exploring differential associations between the NIAS and related constructs. Results suggested that a three-factor model provided an excellent fit of the data and demonstrated scalar invariance across self-identified men and women, race and ethnicity, and sexual and gender minority (SGM) identity. Some subgroups had higher latent means on the picky eating (women, SGM, non-Hispanic Black), appetite (women, SGM), and fear (women) factors. The NIAS had some overlap with another measure of disordered eating and was moderately correlated with psychosocial impairment and mental health. Overall, the NIAS may be a useful screening tool for ARFID in veterans, given support for the three proposed subscales and equivalence across diverse identities.