Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 May 23;15(6):719.
doi: 10.3390/bs15060719.

Furthering Our Understanding of Post-Traumatic Mental Health Conditions and Intimate Relationship Outcomes in Veterans of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Camara A T Azubuike  1 , Alexander O Crenshaw  2 , Candice M Monson  3   4
Affiliations

Furthering Our Understanding of Post-Traumatic Mental Health Conditions and Intimate Relationship Outcomes in Veterans of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Camara A T Azubuike et al. Behav Sci (Basel). .

Abstract

Objective: Although there has been substantial research on post-traumatic stress disorder and its commonly comorbid conditions, the unique associations among these mental health symptoms and relationship adjustment have not been investigated. The purpose of this paper is to extend understanding of the associations among PTSD and relationship adjustment for female and male veterans, as well as to account for the impact of comorbid symptoms of depression and problematic alcohol use in a large sample.

Method: Participants were 2325 (n = 1122 men and 1203 women) veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from a larger study exploring wartime experiences and post-deployment adjustment. Chi-square analyses and regressions tested the associations among mental health symptoms (PTSD symptom severity, depressive symptoms, and problematic alcohol use) and relationship status and adjustment.

Results: For both men and women, those with probable PTSD were less likely to be in an intimate relationship than those without probable PTSD, and those in intimate relationships had lower PTSD symptom severity compared with those not in intimate relationships. However, when accounting for PTSD, depression, and problematic alcohol use simultaneously, only depression emerged as a significant negative predictor of relationship adjustment.

Conclusions: Shared variance among these common post-traumatic mental health conditions comorbidities may be most responsible for PTSD's negative association with relationship adjustment. Unique remaining variance of depression is also negatively associated with relationship adjustment. Treatment implications of these findings for individual and couple therapy post-trauma are provided.

Keywords: PTSD; alcohol; depression; relationship adjustment; veterans.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

    1. American Psychiatric Association . Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 4th ed. American Psychiatric Association; 2000. Text Rev.
    1. American Psychiatric Association . Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5-TR) American Psychiatric Association Publishing; 2022. - DOI
    1. Andresen E. M., Malmgren J. A., Carter W. B., Patrick D. L. Screening for depression in well older adults: Evaluation of a short form of the CES-D (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale) American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 1994;10(2):77–84. doi: 10.1016/S0749-3797(18)30622-6. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baucom D. H., Fischer M. S., Worrell M., Corrie S., Belus J. M., Molyva E., Boeding S. E. Couple-based Intervention for depression: An effectiveness study in the national health service in England. Family Process. 2018;57(2):275–292. doi: 10.1111/famp.12332. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Brady K. T., Killeen T. K., Brewerton T., Lucerini S. Comorbidity of psychiatric disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 2000;61((Suppl. S7)):22–32. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources