Female veterans: Risk and resilience among those who have been deployed

Women are playing an increasingly larger role in the United States (US) military. Between October 2001 and December 2009, 154,536 women were deployed at least one time to Iraq or Afghanistan. Many of these women have served in “combat support” positions such as “military police, convoy transportation, intelligence, pilots, medics and mechanics”, which has placed them at risk for exposure to physical and psychological stressors. Moreover, between October 1 2001 and September 30, 2012, over a hundred thousand unique female Veterans from the recent conflicts sought VA health care. Although exposure to deployment-related stressors has impacted the mental and physical health of some female military personnel and Veterans, limited work has been conducted to specifically examine “gender differences” in outcomes (Street et al., 2009), including suicide. Recent work by Kemp and Bossarte (2013) suggests that when comparing female veterans not seeking care within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), to those seeing care within VHA, to non-veteran women, common and unique characteristics emerge. During this presentation, research regarding suicidal thoughts and behaviors among female military personnel and Veterans will be discussed. In specific, findings from a qualitative study of female Veterans from recent conflicts will be presented. Themes emerged regarding the women being a minority both in the military and at home. Deployment-related stressors were a focus of responses.Such experiences appeared to influence the women's views of the world and ways of coping. Directors for future research will be discussed.