The Toll at Home

Wartime Raises Stress in Military Offspring

Children with parents in the military have higher blood pressure, heart rates and general stress levels than their peers during wartime, researchers say.

Researchers looked at 121 adolescents— 48 with civilian parents, 20 with a parent deployed to Iraq and 53 with a parent in the military but not deployed— days after Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched in March 2003 and three months later when President Bush announced major hostilities had ceased.

At both points, adolescent offspring of military personnel selfreported higher levels of stress, reports that were supported by blood pressure and heart rate measures.

“We expected stress levels would push up blood pressure and heart rates,” said Dr. Vernon Barnes, an MCG physiologist and principal author of a paper published in the January 2007 issue of Military Medicine.

Dr. Barnes and his colleagues used a posttraumatic stress disorder questionnaire, psychosocial survey and physiological data to assess stress levels of the teens, who were students at Augusta’s Academy of Richmond County.

Acknowledging that the study was small and did not assess nonwarrelated stressors, the researchers believe the results merit attention. “We are not aware of any [other] studies examining the impact of the onset of the war on both stress levels and blood pressure of military offspring,” Dr. Barnes said.

There is evidence of the impact of environmental stress on blood pressure and heart rate, important indicators of cardiovascular health, he said. “Certainly, the stress response is increased in soldiers, but this research indicates that it’s also increased in the families they leave behind.”

“Given the continued presence of U.S. soldiers deployed to [Operation Iraqi Freedom] and mounting casualties, these findings suggest that youth with family members in the military, particularly those deployed overseas, may warrant increased attention of parents, educators and counselors during this period of active conflict,” the researchers wrote. “Further research is warranted to determine whether stress reduction interventions may be effective in reducing stress levels and associated indices of sympathetic nervous system arousal in children of military personnel.”

The work was funded in part by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; a research abstract was presented at the American Psychosomatic Society’s 2004 annual meeting.

Toni Baker