Unit cohesion during deployment and post-deployment mental health: is cohesion an individual- or unit-level buffer for combat-exposed soldiers?
Abstract
Unit cohesion may protect service member mental health by mitigating effects of combat exposure; however, questions remain about the origins of potential stress-buffering effects. We examined buffering effects associated with two forms of unit cohesion (peer-oriented horizontal cohesion and subordinate-leader vertical cohesion) defined as either individual-level or aggregated unit-level variables. Longitudinal survey data from US Army soldiers who deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 were analyzed using mixed-effects regression. Models evaluated individual- and unit-level interaction effects of combat exposure and cohesion during deployment on symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and suicidal ideation reported at 3 months post-deployment (model n's = 6684 to 6826). Given the small effective sample size (k = 89), the significance of unit-level interactions was evaluated at a 90% confidence level. At the individual-level, buffering effects of horizontal cohesion were found for PTSD symptoms [B = -0.11, 95% CI (-0.18 to -0.04), p < 0.01] and depressive symptoms [B = -0.06, 95% CI (-0.10 to -0.01), p < 0.05]; while a buffering effect of vertical cohesion was observed for PTSD symptoms only [B = -0.03, 95% CI (-...Continue Reading
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