Psychological and physical health effects of sexual assaults and nonsexualtraumas among male and female United States Army soldiers

Lifetime trauma history was assessed in a health study of active duty Unite d States Army soldiers. Five hundred fifty-five male and 573 female soldier s in the sample were asked whether they had ever experienced 14 different p otentially traumatic experiences, including sexual assaults, violent stress ors to self, land terrifying events that occurred to others and were second arily traumatic through exposure by gaining information or as a witness to the event. Most soldiers had experienced multiple traumas, and premilitary exposure to events was much more common than exposure to Events after enter ing the military: Global measures of current psychological distress and phy sical health symptoms were predicted by the lifetime number of sexual assau lts and traumas to self: Social support from military unit leaders moderate d the relationship between accumulated exposure to traumas and both health measures, whereas unit cohesion was directly associated with fever mental h ealth problems.