The Correlates of Self‐Reported Abusive Violence Among Post‐9/11 U.S. Military Veterans

ABSTRACT

The frequency of reports of abusive violence among US service members deployed to post‐9/11 operations and the psychosocial associations of participating in such behaviors are largely unexamined. We examined reports of participation in and observation of abusive violence behaviors in a sample of deployed veterans ( N  = 1345) and explored their correlates, which were contrasted with reports of exposure to combat stressors, using Emotional Processing Theory as a framework for variable selection. Forty percent of the sample (46% of men, 35% of women) endorsed observing at least one abusive violence behavior and fourteen percent of the sample (23% of men, 6% of women) reported participation in at least one abusive violence behavior. The nomological networks of abusive violence participation and observation were highly similar, but distinct from combat exposure. Abusive violence participation and observation were comparable to combat exposure in their associations with externalizing problems (e.g., alcohol and substance use), but each had consistently smaller associations with internalizing distress (e.g., depression, PTSD symptoms). Reports of exposure to abusive violence, particularly via observation, appear to be relatively common among deployed veterans with varying severities of internalizing distress, and these unique experiences are associated with a range of mental and behavioral health symptoms and functional difficulties that diverge from those associated with combat exposure.