Deployment Risk and Resilience Inventory: A Collection of Measures for Studying Deployment-Related Experiences of Military Personnel and Veterans

Abstract

This article describes the development of an inventory to assess key psychosocial risk and resilience factors for military personnel and veterans deployed to war zones or other hazardous environments. Part 1 details the definition and operationalization of the 14 constructs: 2 predeployment factors (e.g., childhood family environment), 10 deployment or war-zone factors (e.g., concerns about life and family disruptions, deployment social support, combat experiences), and 2 postdeployment factors (e.g., postdeployment stressors). In Parts 2 and 3, data from 2 separate national samples of Gulf War veterans were used to refine item sets and establish estimates of internal consistency reliability. Part 4 employed a 3rd new national sample of Gulf War veterans to document evidence for validity in terms of relations with mental and physical health.