Term of Award

Fall 2020

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.)

Document Type and Release Option

Dissertation (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Psychology

Committee Chair

Dorthie Cross

Committee Member 1

C. Thresa Yancey

Committee Member 2

Ryan Couillou

Abstract

As of 2017, over 1.3 million Americans are enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces (Department of Defense, 2017). Military personnel, particularly those exposed to combat, are significantly more likely to experience Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD; Xue et al., 2015). Furthermore, persons with PTSD are more likely to misuse alcohol, particularly when motivated to drink as a means to cope with negative emotions related to their PTSD symptoms (Simpson et al., 2014). Both PTSD and alcohol misuse have been found to contribute negatively to parental satisfaction and distress (Chesmore et al., 2018; McGraw et al., 2018). Veterans/service members who were parents (N =20) recruited from MTurk completed self-report questionnaires on combat exposure, PTSD, alcohol use behavior and motivations, and parenting satisfaction and self-efficacy. Combat exposure and PTSD symptoms independently predict parenting self-efficacy, but neither predict parenting satisfaction, contrary to previous research. Furthermore, PTSD did not mediate the relationships between combat exposure and parenting variables, nor did alcohol variables (misuse and motivation) moderate the mediations. Study results are limited by small sample size.

OCLC Number

1231987104

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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