American Veterans currently
represent a poorly understood, underrepresented segment of the population. The
proportion of the US population that identifies as a Veteran is continuing to
decline, with the prevalence reported as 7% in 2020 (Vespa, 2020). While
cultural competence is critical to the practices of psychotherapy and clinical
research, numerous divergent strategies for defining Veteran investigational
cohorts can be found, at times including participants who are still actively
serving or their dependents. 3 studies modeled a Veteran by participation in
the VA, 2 that used participation in a campaign or a military operation to
define the studied group, 3 that used a prior history of participation in the
Armed Forces, and 2 studies that used alternative definitions will be presented
and discussed. Simultaneously, our Veterans have been shown to be at a greater
risk for a range of biopsychosocial challenges than normed civilians. The
differing modeling strategies may be contributing to the “veteran disorder”
that describes the reduction of functioning of Veterans as compared to
civilians (MacLeash, 2019). This study sought to identify the culturally
preferred strategy of self-identification of US Veterans. It has been
hypothesized that the preferred self-identification of Veterans is “Veteran”
while the Service Members identify with the branch of service. 325 participants
were selected at random from an archival dataset of 655 respondents who were
asked their preferred method of self-identification. The study population was
inclusive of 94 Service Members and 231 Veterans. The responses indicate that
membership in both Service Member and Veteran groups is exclusive, with 100% of
Veterans preferring to identify as a Veteran and 100% of Service Members
identifying with the branch of service.
Author(s)
Details :-
Michael Ginzburg
Anchor Therapy Clinic, Sacramento, California, USA.
Please see the book
here :- https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/rraass/v9/44
