Women who served in Iraq seeking mental health services: Relationships between military sexual trauma, symptoms, and readjustment.

Abstract

Eighteen women who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF) sought mental health services at a Veterans’ Affairs (VA) medical center. Ten of the 18 women (56%) reported military sexual trauma (MST) while serving in OIF/OEF. All 10 with MST reported sexual harassment, 6 of the 10 (33% of the sample) reported unwanted physical advances, and 3 (17%) reported completed assault or rape. Fifteen women also completed a questionnaire about their experiences and the Iraq Readjustment Inventory (IRI) developed for this study. High reliability and high correlations with clinician ratings make the IRI a promising measure for future research. A comparison between those with and without MST revealed that those with MST had higher clinician ratings and IRI scores, suggesting greater difficulty with readjustment. And, while MST was significantly correlated with clinician ratings and readjustment scores, the variables “being injured” and “witnessing others injured or killed” were not. These preliminary data suggest that MST OIF/OEF women seeking mental health services is a critical factor for predicting symptoms and difficulty with readjustment to civilian life.

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