A new study by researchers from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS), RTI International, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has determined that wives of deployed soldiers use mental health resources more frequently than other wives. They also seek mental health treatment more often the longer the deployment according to the study, which sampled roughly 250,000 Army wives between the ages of 18 and 48. "The longer the husband had been deployed, the more we saw an excess of disorders," said Army Col. (Dr.) Charles Engel, the associate chair of psychiatry at USUHS, who helped manage the study. Researchers hope to use the data to formulate more effective mental-health protocols for future military spouses who fade the pressures of deployments.
