Nursing care for the military veteran and their family
Abstract: Armed Forces personnel risk their lives in defence of their country, whilst their families are exposed to regular changes in location and spending long periods apart. Many veterans have witnessed dreadful incidents, including the death of friends and civilians of all ages and have a high prevalence of common mental health (MH) disorders (Finnegan & Randles, 2022). They are embedded in the fabric of society; for example, in the United Kingdom, there are an estimated 2 M veterans, and in the USA, 25 M. These figures can be multiplied by four to indicate the number of the wider Armed Forces Community (AFC) of serving personnel, veterans and their families.
Abstract: U.S. Air Force remotely piloted aircraft (USAF RPA) personnel face diverse stressors negatively affecting psychological health and military readiness. Prior research in diverse populations supports predictable impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on occupational stressors, burnout, and more distal outcomes. Extending earlier studies linking broad variables (e.g., COVID-19 threat → work stress → burnout), the current study tests and refines an expanded mediation model based on multiple distinct pandemic concerns, occupational stressors, and burnout facets as antecedents of psychological distress mid-pandemic in RPA personnel (N = 496). Differential representation of demands, resources, and rewards evident across distinct occupational stressors in light of job demands/resources theory guided specification of mediated pathways. SEM analysis yielded moderate fit. Following removal of non-significant paths and addition of two interpretable direct paths, fit was improved, yielding seven dominant pandemic concern → occupational stressor → burnout → psychological distress pathways. In support of domain specification, five 'hub' variables (pandemic-driven change, personal stressors, workload, leader communication, and exhaustion) emerged as key intervention targets in mitigating distress in the USAF RPA community and similar populations during future pandemic-related crises.