Table 1
Sample Description (N = 23).
| N (%) | |
|---|---|
| Gender | |
| Men | 16 (70%) |
| Women | 7 (30%) |
| Branch of service | |
| Army | 13 (57%) |
| Marine Corps | 6 (26%) |
| Navy | 3 (13%) |
| Air Force | 1 (4%) |
| Race/ethnicity | |
| White | 17 (74%) |
| Hispanic/Latinx | 4 (17%) |
| Multiracial | 2 (9%) |
| Region | |
| Midwest (IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, OH) | 9 (39%) |
| Northeast (MA, NY, PA) | 5 (22%) |
| South (KY, MD, TX, VA) | 5 (22%) |
| West (CA, ID, OR) | 4 (17%) |
| Behavioral health symptoms | |
| Depression positive screen | 7 (30%) |
| PTSD positive screen | 5 (22%) |
| Generalized anxiety disorder positive screen | 7 (30%) |
| Hazardous alcohol use positive screen | 7 (30%) |
| Behavioral health care receipt | |
| Any care at VA in lifetime | 11 (48%) |
| Any care outside the VA in lifetime | 9 (39%) |
| MEAN (SD) | |
| Years served in the military | 6.49 (2.98) |
| Years since separation | 8.85 (5.40) |
Table 2
Examples of Participant Responses Within Key Themes.
| KEY THEME | EXEMPLARY QUOTE |
|---|---|
| Stress and Wellbeing | |
| Economic and financial | I had been actually unemployed for a pretty extended amount of time. I was mostly, a lot of my income was from my veteran’s disability and donated plasma. And then a lot of my day to day was pretty much job hunting, which was almost exclusively online. So, I was already kind of spending a fair amount of time indoors and online as it were in the days leading up. |
| Family-related stressors | No matter what, when you get all of your kids together, there’s going to be bickering. There’s going to be fighting even with neurotypical kids. You throw in the non-neurotypical kid, and then there’s, there’s other issues that arise from that. Not being able to get him to his doctor’s appointments was the biggest thing. Because over the phone that you can only do so much with appointments. And so, you know, it’s, it’s been a huge relief that the school has really pushed to get the kids back to school. A lot of the stress from that’s been alleviated there’s still that if, or when they decide that they’re, you know, if, or when my kids come into contact because with sports and everything like that, they’re exposed to not only the kids that are in the classrooms, but the kids who are in sports and their parents, and then at the different games and the cross country meets and things like that. |
| Changes to routines | For me actually, I think it kind of helps because I have a little bit of like social anxiety, so I don’t really like going out places. So, with everything being closed, it kind of made it so I didn’t have to. |
| Mental Health | |
| Anxiety | I would attribute the pandemic to having a, a small increase in [anxiety], just because there were so many unknowns and so much information whether misinformation or not, I don’t know, so much information out there about COVID and then the lack of information at the same time kind of made it hard to make decisions and kind of just contributes to the anxiety. |
| Depression | I mean like depression’s high, because I don’t feel like I have a purpose and I’m like spinning my wheels all day trying to find shit to do. And then I look in the mirror and I fucking gain 35 pounds. So, like I’m probably more depressed. |
| Posttraumatic Stress Disorder | I don’t have the stressors that bother me with my PTSD during the day, like the social anxiety, the like I’m like hypervigilant when people are like behind me and things like that. But when I’m home by myself, I don’t have to really worry about a lot of that. |
| Anger | Well anger, it’s just so easy, you know where you’re feeling all these other things, frustration, fear, you know, what have you, anger is just kind of the easiest thing to just latch onto. |
| Substance Use | |
| Alcohol | I think at the beginning of it, I drank a little bit more because it was, I don’t know, it was kind of a weird time and you couldn’t really go anywhere, you can’t do anything. And the weather was nice and we have a swimming pool and a fire pit and I was like, Oh, I guess it’s five o’clock somewhere today. It was more than usual. And more like more days than usual, but I don’t think it didn’t last that long and I feel like it was like kind of, I don’t know. I was like, okay. It’s time to time to really reel it in a little bit. |
| Tobacco/Nicotine | I enjoy a cigar every now and then, where I might’ve had one to four a year pre-pandemic. I might’ve had six, no, a little bit more, more frequently. Cause yeah, I had the time to. Hey, well I guess I’ll go sit in the backyard and smoke a cigarette, enjoy the out there, smoke a cigar and enjoy the outside time. But really didn’t ratchet it up on there. |
| Marijuana and other drug use | My doctor actually a couple of years ago suggested I try weed for sleeping and I did. And I was like, Oh, wow, this actually works. I’m not a guy that like goes out and smokes a joint. Like, I don’t really like being high. It just really does work to knock me out. |
| Physical Health | |
| COVID-19 | They are saying like that people with, uh, like preexisting conditions are like more at risk of like this disease being like fatal, like more fatal to them. Um, I think about like that, and I’m like, oh, I made it through once, who’s to say that I would be able to go through it a second time and make it. |
| Public health behaviors | We social distance, but we’ve allowed visitors here and there, but we’re very strict with the hand washing and the masks and who we allow around the baby, even with, with the siblings, we make sure they wash their hands. |
| Pain | Headaches definitely increased. More, they just more, I have lupus, so I know a lot of it stems from that. But just more joint pain, more achiness during that time. And I, I feel like stress does make it worse. |
| Sleep | I couldn’t stop watching the news when it all first started happening … I mean, I’ve always had sleep problems, but I think that’s intensified. |
| Diet and exercise | Like going to constant availability of food during the workday and, you know, nothing’s stopping you from having three well prepared meals. Like definitely, you know, pants too tight by month four and, you know, really having to have a concerted effort like, wait, you know, I actually have to exercise still. Can’t just pig out. |
| Healthcare Access | |
| Difficulties in access | I think probably the biggest impact that it has is that it’s a little harder for me to kind of follow up with my provider in terms of like what we discussed last time. ‘Cause when I was getting seen every week, there was a sort of like progression that was being tracked. You know, there was something that I was, I needed to do every week to kind of, you know, progress, and work on like a certain issue that I’m working on. But then, you know, in the past couple months, it’s those sessions have kind of fallen through in favor of a, you know, how am I able to update the doctor on everything that’s happened to me in the last six, six weeks and how am I feeling about this and that? I was spending all my time just catching up essentially. So, the care is not as effective as it used to be. |
| Telehealth services | They actually set up a pretty quick telehealth thing that I was able to do. I’ve had an appointment with him about once a quarter, no issues. I’ve actually got another one set up Monday. Um, very similar. They don’t use zoom, they use whatever the VA uses, but same thing. I’ll get an email. Here’s a link, this time call in, do a quick 10-to-15-minute checkoff. Any questions? Here’s your refill, have a nice day. |
| Social Life | |
| Decreases | It was kind of a culture shock because we would have our same, like, I think like four or five friends over at least once every two weeks, or we would say to one of our friends and his wife typically once a week. And then all of a sudden it went from that to like a, a month and a half, two months without seeing any of them. Whereas like the, we would do like video Hangouts or virtual friendships is what we called it. But I mean, which is great, but it still, I mean, looking at somebody in the screen is completely different than sitting across the room from them. |
| Increases/No change | I’ve probably been a lot more social with my close friends and family. A lot of it is kind of you know, communicating online. We have a very a lot of my friends have kind of had like a small group of like three or four people that kind of don’t really have big social circles. So we kind of formed our own and we’ll occasionally do something in person, but for the most part it’s kind of online communicating you know, finding different apps that allow us to like watch the same movie, you know, remotely just kind of finding ways around the distance. |
| Social support | I mean, at least in my situation, we’re doing good, and you know, it shows. Like I said, I would go out, I would get the supplies for the family, make sure everybody had what they need it. And when other family members would be doing their things, they would do the same. You know, if they thought that there was something that we needed, ‘Hey, I was out saw this thought, you might need this too.’ So, in that sense, like people, for the most part, helping other people, you know, despite what you see in the news, people only want to see what’s going wrong in the world. People don’t want to see what’s going right. |
| Positive Changes | |
| Personal growth | For me moving forward with my professional goals is definitely something that has to happen, you know, pandemic or no pandemic. That’s not something I want to put on pause. |
| Time with family/loved ones | The nuclear family is probably a little bit tighter because we’re spending more time together and we’ve had some kind of hard talks about, hey, in case things kind of go south, this is what we’re going to do to take care of us. |
| Military Attitudes and Resilience | I think a lot of veterans are probably better apt at dealing with the COVID stuff, because you’re used to the rapid change all the time, you know? And you’re used to following orders. If someone tells you to do something, right. You just do it. There’s not a lot of questioning around oh, well, you know, this person’s telling me I need to do this now, let’s go ahead and do it, and betterment of society. I think a lot of veterans kind of have that in their back of their mind, you know, like there’s a reason that we’re doing what we’re doing. |