Notification, Viewing the Body, and Social and Cultural Considerations After Traumatic Death: A Systematic Literature Review.

We conducted a systematic review of the medical, nursing, forensic, and social science literature describing events and processes associated with what happens after a traumatic death in the socio-cultural context of largely Western and high-income societies. These include death notification, why survivors choose to view or not view the body, forensic practices affecting viewing the body, alternatives to viewing, and social and cultural practices following the death. We also describe how elements of these processes may act to increase or lessen some of the negative cognitive and emotional consequences for both survivors and providers.

Child Maltreatment Fatality Review: Purposes, Processes, Outcomes, and Challenges.

Better understanding of the causes and circumstances of maltreatment deaths of children is needed to prevent tragedy. The purpose of this article is to facilitate understanding of child maltreatment fatality review processes and their outcomes. A literature review was conducted through searches of the databases PubMed, PsycINFO, and EMBASE and through citations in publications.

Deployment Status and Child Neglect Types in the U.S. Army.

Increases in combat deployments have been associated with rises in rates of child neglect in U.S. military families.

Characteristics, Classification, and Prevention of Child Maltreatment Fatalities.

Background: Preventing child maltreatment fatalities is a critical goal of the U.S. society and the military services.

Early Intervention for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, and Quality of Life in Mortuary Affairs Soldiers Postdeployment.

U.S. Army mortuary affairs (MA) soldiers experience stressors of deployment and exposure to the dead, increasing risk for post-traumatic stress and depression.

Types, Subtypes, and Severity of Substantiated Child Neglect in U.S. Army Communities.

Background: Neglect has been linked to short-term and long-term deleterious outcomes in children, but has received little attention in the research literature.

Objective: Identify types, subtypes, and severity of child neglect in a sample of substantiated cases at 4 U.S.

MILITARY FAMILIES: MEASUREMENT OF COMMUNITY RESOURCE ADEQUACY.

Understanding features of community strength both on and off the military installation will help identify and address the needs of military families. This study introduced a measure to identify adequacy of community resources for military families. Using confirmatory factor analysis with data from 717 service users (M age = 37.

Stress and resilience in military mortuary workers: care of the dead from battlefield to home.

The death of a military service member in war provokes feelings of distress and pride in mortuary workers who process the remains. To further understand their reactions, the authors interviewed 34 military and civilian personnel to learn more about their work stresses and rewards. They review stresses of anticipation, exposure, and experience in handling the dead and explore the personal, supervisory, and leadership strategies to reduce negative effects and promote personal growth.

Child neglect in Army families: a public health perspective.

Military families include 2.9 million people, with approximately 40% of all service members having at least one child. Rates of child neglect in this population have increased in recent years, but little is known about the characteristics of the neglect.

Deployment and the probability of spousal aggression by U.S. Army soldiers.

Objective: To determine the relationship between length of soldier deployment and self-reports of moderate and severe spousal violence.

Methods: The Conflict Tactics Scale was used to measure self-reports of behaviors exhibited in marital conflict. Surveys were administered to a 15% random sample of 26,835 deployed and nondeployed married active duty U.

Alcohol use in nonmutual and mutual domestic violence in the U.S. Army: 1998-2004.

The association between alcohol use and substantiated incidents of nonmutual and mutual domestic violence between U.S. Army enlisted soldiers and their spouses was examined for the period 1998-2004.

Characteristics of domestic violence incidents reported at the scene by volunteer victim advocates.

At a single U.S. Army installation from 1997 to 2005, domestic violence volunteer victim advocates assisted 1,417 clients in 1,380 physical and 301 verbal abuse incidents.

Establishing and maintaining a volunteer victim advocate program to assist victims of domestic violence in the U.S. Army.

A descriptive evaluation of a volunteer victim advocacy (VA) program was conducted to assist domestic violence victims on the scene of a domestic violence incident on a 24-hour per day basis at a U.S. Army installation.

Spouse abuse and alcohol problems among white, African American, and Hispanic U.S. Army soldiers.

Background: Prior studies suggest racial/ethnic differences in the associations between alcohol misuse and spouse abuse. Some studies indicate that drinking patterns are a stronger predictor of spouse abuse for African Americans but not whites or Hispanics, while others report that drinking patterns are a stronger predictor for whites than African Americans or Hispanics. This study extends prior work by exploring associations between heavy drinking, alcohol-related problems, and risk for spouse abuse within racial/ethnic groups as well as variations associated with whether the perpetrator is drinking during the spouse abuse incident.

Positive and negative consequences of a military deployment.

This study determined the perception by 951 U.S. Army soldiers of positive and negative consequences of a peacekeeping deployment to Bosnia.

Postdeployment domestic violence by U.S. Army soldiers.

The objective of this study was to determine whether a military deployment of 6 months predicted domestic violence against the wives of deployed and nondeployed soldiers during the postdeployment period. The method involved the completion of an anonymous questionnaire by a sample of the spouses of soldiers deployed from a large U.S.

Patterns of mutual and nonmutual spouse abuse in the U.S. Army (1998-2002).

The pattern and severity of substantiated mutual and nonmutual spouse abuse between U.S. Army enlisted personnel and their spouses was determined for 1998 to 2002.

Drinking and spouse abuse among U.S. Army soldiers.

Background: This study examines the relationship between typical weekly drinking and perpetration of spouse abuse as well as the relationship between the perpetrator's typical weekly drinking and alcohol use during the abuse event among U.S. Army male soldiers.