Screening for psychological illness in the military.
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Combat Disorders↗
Biomedical subjects
Jeffrey L Thomas
Publications and source records attributed to Jeffrey L Thomas.
The multilevel effects of occupational stressors on soldiers' well-being, organizational attachment, and readiness.
The U.S. Army typifies the stressful nature of many contemporary work settings, as soldiers face a climate of increasing work demands coupled with declining resources. The authors used social identity theory to propose hypotheses regarding contextual and cross-level effects of shared stressors on individual outcomes critical to the functioning of military units (well-being, attachment, readiness). Although the authors found weak support for direct effects of shared stressors on individual outcomes, they found several compelling moderating effects for shared stressors on person-level stressor-outcome relationships. For most effects, shared stressors intensified the effects of person-level stressors on morale, commitment, and depression. However, some shared stressors exerted counterintuitive effects on stressor-outcome relationships. Implications for research and military personnel management are discussed.
Adult↗
Extending and applying the demand-control model: the role of soldier's coping on a peacekeeping deployment.
The purpose of this study was to extend the demand-control model (R. A. Karasek, 1979) by examining coping as an additional factor. It was hypothesized that perceived job control only buffered the demand-strain relationship when individuals used active coping and exacerbated the relationship when individuals used passive coping. Soldiers (N=638) were surveyed before and during a 6-month peacekeeping deployment to Kosovo. Results partially confirmed the hypotheses. Even after controlling for general psychological health at predeployment, job control moderated the relationship between demands and psychological health during deployment when soldiers used active coping. No significant 3-way interactions were found for religious coping and passive coping. Implications for demand-control modeling and potential applications of the findings to soldier and leader training are discussed.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Psychological screening procedures for deploying U.S. Forces.
This study examined the validity of psychological measures used in screening for the U.S. Army with 885 soldiers before a 6-month peacekeeping rotation in Kosovo. Content validity and construct validity were assessed by evaluating the clinical domains, comparing clinician assessments of functioning, and assessing risk factors for screening positive. Construct validity and content validity were demonstrated. Risks, benefits, and future directions of the Army's psychological screening research program are discussed.
Humans↗
Comparing elite soldiers' perceptions of psychological and physical demands during military training.
This research examined the impact of psychological and physical demands on a group of elite soldiers (N = 9) before, during and after training exercises involving routine and unrehearse tasks. Based on the psychological concept of toughening, we expected soldier responses to unrehearsed demands to be les resilient than to routine training demands. As hypothesized soldiers rated their perceptions of physical and psychologica demands higher during the unrehearsed training phase of the study. It was also hypothesized that soldiers would recover more from physical demands than from psychological de mands after the training exercise. Although a trend in the data marginally supported this hypothesis, a note of caution is warranted because of the small sample size. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed, with particular emphasis on the dual importance of psychological and physical training in preparing soldiers for mission demands.
Adaptation, Physiological↗