Barriers to Mental Health Services for Minority-Identified Service Members: Comparison to Non-Minority Service Members and Associations with Marital Satisfaction
Voiceover
Presenter(s)
Kelly McCray, Richard Humbach
Discipline
Social Sciences & Humanities
Abstract or Description
Military service involves unique challenges such as deployments that may impact service members (SMs) and their families. Kim et al. (2010) found both high levels of mental health challenges (MHCs) among active-duty SMs and substantial stigma-related barriers to seeking help, including a fear of their unit leadership treating them differently and/or blaming them for their MHCs. Racism and discrimination may exacerbate concerns regarding these fears. For example, Asian-American service members who endorse stigma as a barrier may be less likely to seek treatment than other ethnic groups (Chu et al., 2021). This study examines whether minority-identifying SMs endorse fear of professional retribution from their leadership at greater rates than non-minority SMs, and whether such fear is associated with lower levels of marital satisfaction for SMs and their partners.
The hypothesis was tested using a sample of married couples from the Army Marriage Project (AMP), consisting of male SMs and female partners (N = 396 male, 389 females). SMs reported on their fear of retribution as a barrier to mental health services, and both partners reported their marital satisfaction. No significant difference (p = .08) was found between the scores for fear of retribution among minority-identifying (M = 2.11, n = 127) and non-minority SMs (M = 2.35, n = 269). There was a significant negative correlation (ρ = -.112, p = .026) between the fear of retribution score and marital satisfaction for male SMs. This was not significant (p = .199) for non-minority SMs, and significant (ρ = -.208, p = .019) for minority-identifying SMs. No significant correlations were identified between the female partners’ marital satisfaction and her partner’s fear of retribution score.
These results may be affected by the nature of the sample (volunteers for a study on a marital intervention) who may be more comfortable with intervention and self-disclosure.