Abstract: This report explores the additional needs of Service families living with disability. The Forces Additional Needs and Disability Forum consists of serving Forces families who have a close loved one with an additional need or disability. Established in 1989, the FANDF have lived experience and knowledge of the challenges families face, helping to give a voice to Forces families with additional needs and disabilities. To mark the 30th anniversary of the creation of the forum, the FANDF committee conducted a survey of issues faced by serving Forces families with additional needs and disability. This is the largest known survey into MOD families with additional needs or disabilities in the UK Armed Forces. The resulting report, Families Fighting On, provides a platform for the families to explain in their own words their lived experiences and the issues they face on a daily basis.
Abstract: Purpose/Objective: Psychometric network analysis (PNA) is an application of dynamic systems theory that can inform measurement of complex rehabilitation phenomena such as depressive symptom patterns in veterans and service members (V/SMs) after traumatic brain injury (TBI). This study applied PNA to the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), a common measure of depressive symptoms, in a sample of V/SMs with TBI at Years 1 and 2 (Y1–2) postinjury. Research Method/Design: A sample of 808 V/SMs with TBI participated, 594 contributing PHQ-9 data at Y1 and 585 at Y2. Participants were recruited while or after receiving inpatient postacute rehabilitation from one of five Veterans Affairs Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers. Results: The networks were stable and invariant over time. At both times, network structure revealed the cardinal depressive symptom 'feeling down, depressed, or hopeless,' as evidenced by its strength centrality. In the Y1 network, the suicidal ideation node was connected exclusively to the network through the guilt node, and in the Y2 network, the suicidal ideation node formed a second connection through the low mood node. The guilt node was the second most influential node at Y1 but was replaced by anhedonia node at Y2. Conclusions/Implications: This study demonstrated the potential of PNA in rehabilitation research and identified the primacy of feeling down, depressed, and hopeless after TBI at both Y1 and Y2, with guilt being the second most influential symptom at Y1, but replaced by anhedonia at Y2, providing supportive evidence that the relationships among depressive symptoms after TBI are dynamic over time.