The long-term effects of military deployments and their relation with the quality of life of Dutch veterans
Abstract
Experiences during military deployments may have serious negative consequences for the health and well-being of veterans. The literature presents a wealth of information on these negative effects that are mostly studied relatively shortly after the veteran returned from deployment. Our purpose was to determine to what extent the deployment plays a role in the life of Dutch veterans who have left the Armed Forces and who returned from their deployment in a time frame from 1950 until 2018. Also, we aimed to assess how several deployment related factors are associated with their quality of life. We invited 6,000 veterans to fill out a questionnaire; 2,643 (44%) participated. We found support for long-term effects of deployments among almost half of the Dutch veterans. For most of those who experience an effect of the deployment in their life at present, that effect is positive. We also found support for deployment related factors to be related to veterans’ quality of life. Our findings underline the importance to study the long-term effects of experiences during deployment for veterans and thereby not to focus solely on the negative effects in order to get a more complete picture of the consequences of deployments veterans’ lives.
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In the long run, military service has been found to have positive effects.
“In the long run, military service has been found to have positive effects.6 7”
From Factors associated with self-reported health among New Zealand military veterans: A cross-sectional study (2022) · cites this paper as [7]
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- Authors
- Duel, J., & Reijnen, A.
- Affiliations
- Centre for Research and Expertise, Netherlands Veterans Institute, Doorn, the Netherlands
- Corresponding author
- Duel, Jacco
- Venue
- Military Behavioral Health
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2020-09-26
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 160-169
- ISSN
- 2163-5781 (ISSN-L)
- 2163-5803
- OpenAlex
- W3087977745
- Cited by
- 5
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 0.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Military Behavioral Health (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Education › Education and Military Integration
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Occupational Therapy › Occupational Health and Performance
- Keywords
- military deployment, veterans, quality of life, long-term effects, Dutch armed forces
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