Enhancing Resiliency and Optimizing Readiness in Military Personnel
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
Summary
Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) are specialized United States Army units formed to train, advise, assist, enable and accompany operations with allied and partner nations. Security Force Assistance Brigades are composed of roughly 800 senior military personnel, primarily commissioned and non-commissioned officers selected from regular Army units across a wide range of military specialties. Because of the high operational tempo (OPTEMPO) of these units, individual resiliency is of utmost importance in maintaining readiness to successfully execute critical, high-stress missions. Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) is an evidence-based intervention with strong potential to enhance resiliency by bolstering psychological flexibility along with other factors which have been demonstrated to optimize individual and group performance. This project will compare an Acceptance and Commitment Training-based resiliency-enhancement training program as compared to training as usual in 600 3rd Security Force Assistance Brigades soldiers stationed at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. Assessment measures related to resilience will be administered before and after training as well as before and after deployment. Assessments will be conducted at baseline, and every 4 months thereafter for a total of 16-months.
Description
Over the past decade, the Department of Defense has also had a significant interest in the development and evaluation of evidence-based programs for enhancing resiliency in military personnel to help optimize operational readiness and prevent deployment-related psychological health causalities (Peterson, Cigrang, \& Isler, 2009). Maintaining health, optimizing performance, and boosting resiliency to stressors in harsh combat environments is a momentous challenge. Conducting research aimed at enhancing health, performance, and resiliency is similarly challenging. As a result, few studies have d…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18+ years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria: * Adult 18 or older * Male or female soldiers assigned to the 3rd SFAB Exclusion Criteria: * None
Interventions
- BehavioralPsychological Flexibility Training (PFT)
A 2-day workshop lasting approximately 8 hours per day. Day 1: an overview of the training and to describe the posture or stance that prepares one to respond to challenging situations in a psychologically flexible manner. Day 2: identifies common coping strategies that typically fail or even "backfire" over the long term and to practice skills that promote psychological flexibility. Experiential exercises will be integrated throughout the training. Following the PFT, 4 optional, monthly, one-hour booster sessions to supply refresher information. * An experiential exercise to highlight one or more process/concept that was introduced during the 2-day training. * Questions from the attendees about applying the concepts in their lives. * Comments and questions from the booster session facilitators to encourage application of the concepts.
Location
- Fort HoodKilleen, Texas