Page 31 - Biobehavioral Resilence to Stress

8 Biobehavioral Resilience to Stress

review are consistent with those of earlier reports (e.g., Trent & Laurence, 1993)
as well as with ongoing research (Buddin, 2005), which concludes that more
than one-third of all recruits will leave the military service before the end
of their first enlisted term. About one-third of attrition occurs in the fi rst

6 months of service, and about one-half occurs during the first year (Fischl &

Blackwell, 2000; Flyer & Elster, 1983; Klein, Hawes-Dawson & Martin, 1991;
Military personnel, 2000; Trent & Laurence, 1993). While early separations
are commonly related to mental health issues, later separations are more

often related to drug/alcohol problems or off enses such as violent behavior.

Despite best efforts to develop effective screening strategies, attrition rates
remain high and have not decreased during the past 20 years.
Another pressing concern for the military is that even the most thor-
oughly trained, stable, well-behaved, and apparently resilient war fi ghter can

find himself or herself quite suddenly unable to perform very well-learned
tasks under the uniquely stressful and sometimes traumatic conditions of
real combat. Likewise, exposure to traumatic stress may bring about psycho-
logical difficulties such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).*

Clearly, it is in the military’s interest to optimize the resilience of its
fighting force, and one means of doing so is to improve and implement

psychological screening methods that can identify resilient characteristics
and behavior. Resilience is a complex phenomenon that involves multiple
factors of psychosocial, experiential, behavioral, and physiological infl uence.
In order to identify, measure, and screen for resilience, we need to develop a
clear and useful understanding of what makes some individuals more resilient
than others to particular types of stress, and why the same individual might

be more or less resilient to different types of stress. To that end, we can con-

sider specific factors that have already been linked to stress-related outcomes
such as first-term attrition, PTSD, and violent or criminal behavior.

Demographic Factors

Specific demographic variables have been associated with fi rst-term attrition
as well as with PTSD (Brewin, Andrews & Valentine, 2000; Knapik et al.,
2004). Although these relationships are correlative in nature, they are of
unique interest for their consistency with stress-related outcome. In general,

* PTSD is a syndrome that can result from exposure to traumatic experiences, including
those encountered in combat. Symptoms of PTSD include unwanted thoughts about the

original trauma, nightmares, flashbacks, loss of interest, detachment, sleep disturbance,
pronounced startle response, emotional numbing, and trouble concentrating. Research
suggests that between 15% and 31% of Vietnam veterans have suffered from PTSD
(Kulka et al., 1990; Centers for Disease Control, 1988; Rosen, 2004). Current estimates
of the prevalence of PTSD among different groups of U.S. military personnel returning
from the war in Iraq vary widely, but likely approximate 12–13% (Hoge et al., 2004).

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