A new study under the auspices of the University of Michigan which looks at Air Force women who have deployed to Iraq has found that about 20 percent of the 1,114 respondents suffer from at least one major symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. What interested researchers more is the fact that they were able to pinpoint work-family stress as “an independent and significant predictor of PTSD, above and beyond combat exposure,” said Air Force Reserve nurse Col. Penny Pierce, an associate professor in the university’s School of Nursing. Pierce, who is co-head of an ongoing study on deployment-related stressors, added, “This finding is important because there are things we can do to help minimize work-family stress.”
The U.S. sent Air Force F-16s over central Syria in a show of force following the Dec. 13 killing of two U.S. Army Soldiers and one American civilian interpreter by a gunman linked to the Islamic State group.
