A new report has highlighted the complex ways in which military life can influence service partners’ alcohol use and other lifestyle behaviours.
The research, by the King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR), King’s College London, used diaries and interviews with mostly female partners of men who were serving, or had served, in the UK armed forces to better understand what influenced their alcohol use.
This FiMT-funded study set out to identify the factors affecting the alcohol use of military and veteran partners. Participants highlighted pressures that included the impact of uncertainty over future plans, managing stress or boredom, and saving drinking for social occasions with friends or military events, or the return of their serving partner at the weekends.
Researchers then conducted a review to identify alcohol support programmes available to the partners of military and ex-military personnel but no such programmes were identified.
To read the full report, go to fim-trust.org