The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent the level of coping skills,
internal resources, social support, perception and pile-up of life events affect Air Force
families’ adjustments after relocation. The major objectives were threefold: (a) to assess
which of the husbands' and wives' strengths and resources contributed to the family's
adjustment to the stress associated with permanent change of station moves, (b) to explore
whether wives' levels of coping are critical to family adjustment and (c) to determine if the
types and/or levels of coping used are significantly different at two points in time after the
move. A secondary objective was an exploration through factor analyses of the construct
validity for this population of four of the measures used: FACES, Quality of Life, Ways
of Coping Checklist and Social Support Inventory.
Results showed that for the husbands and wives pile-up of life events had a significant
inverse relationship to mean Quality of Life with Displacement/Denial, FACES and
Perception also correlated for the wives. For both husbands and wives, the FACES
discrepancy score was significantly correlated with the discrepancy Quality of Life score
with pile-up and Reframing also correlated for the wives. Controlling for the
influence of the moderator variables, pile-up of life events was significantly correlated with
mean Quality of Life for the husbands while pile-up and Social Support were correlated for
the wives. The wives had pile-up, Reframing, Discrepancy FACES and Self-focused
Coping which showed a significant correlation with discrepancy Quality of Life.
Wives showed a greater use of several types of coping including Positive Focus, Social
Support, Displacement/Denial and Reframing while the husbands showed a greater use of
coworkers for social support and Problem-focused Coping. A higher usage of special
groups for social support was the only difference found between the individuals who had
moved at different points in time. In addition, the results provided further empirical
support for the Double ABCX Family Stress Model. Suggestions were made for
interventions to help to alleviate the stress of moving for the military family.
Date of Award | 1988 |
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Original language | English |
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Awarding Institution | |
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FAMILY SATISFACTION IN AIR FORCE FAMILIES AS A FUNCTION OF FAMILY STRENGTHS. RESOURCES AND COPING FOLLOWING RELOCATION
Olsen, M. G. (Author). 1988
Student thesis: PhD