Perceived childhood family cohesiveness prior to deployment prospectively moderates risk for war-zone psychopathology in theater among deployed U.S. soldiers.

Several studies have demonstrated robust protective effects of childhood family support and cohesiveness on adult stress-related psychopathology. However, there is little evidence regarding the prospective relationship between the perceived childhood family environment and the in-theater emergence of war-zone stress-related psychological symptoms. The present report is from data collected from the Texas Combat PTSD Risk Project, which aims to identify risk and resilience factors at predeployment that predict the subsequent impact of war-zone stressors in terms of psychological symptom emergence in U.S. soldiers deployed to Iraq.