A major health policy concern of deployed U.S. military personnel has been the observed high occurrence of postdeployment behavioral health problems. Unit cohesiveness is considered one of several protective factors against the negative effects of combat exposure. Studies, however, have not examined cohesiveness' group-level effects on the relationship of combat stressors to behavioral health problems. These relationships were examined both at the soldier level and unit level using hierarchical linear modeling. Recently, returned deployed Army National Guard soldiers (N = 4,567 in 50 companies) responded to questions about combat exposure, postdeployment unit cohesiveness, and behavioral health problems. Combat events were associated with more suicidal thoughts, alcohol misuse, and behavioral health problems. By comparison, unit cohesiveness was associated with fewer behavioral health problems both at the individual level (all three outcome variables) and unit level (alcohol misuse and behavioral health problems). At the soldier level, the buffering effect of unit cohesiveness was evident only for alcohol misuse. At the unit level the protective factor of unit cohesiveness on unit members' behavioral health was evident for alcohol misuse and behavioral health problems. In addition, the relationship of combat events to suicidal thoughts was less evident among units having higher rather than lower levels of unit cohesiveness (cross-leveling effect). Findings suggest that integrative unit relationships better enable soldiers to adjust to combat exposure. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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先前部署的陆军国民警卫队的凝聚力：对部署后行为健康的影响。

部署的美国军事人员对健康政策的主要关注是，部署后行为健康问题的发生率很高。单位凝聚力被认为是对抗战斗暴露的负面影响的几种保护因素之一。然而，研究还没有研究凝聚力在战斗压力源与行为健康问题之间的关系上在小组层面上的影响。使用层次线性模型在士兵级别和单位级别检查了这些关系。最近，回国部署的陆军国民警卫队士兵（50个公司中的N = 4,567）回答了有关战斗暴露，部署后单位凝聚力和行为健康问题的问题。战斗事件与更多的自杀念头，酗酒和行为健康问题有关。通过对比，单位凝聚力与个人水平（所有三个结果变量）和单位水平（酒精滥用和行为健康问题）的行为健康问题较少相关。在士兵层面，单位凝聚力的缓冲作用仅在滥用酒精时才明显。在单位一级，对于酒精滥用和行为健康问题，单位凝聚力对单位成员行为健康的保护因素是显而易见的。此外，战斗事件与自杀念头之间的关系在具有较高而不是较低水平的单位凝聚力（跨等级效应）的单位中不那么明显。研究结果表明，整合单位关系可以使士兵更好地适应战斗暴露。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2021 APA，保留所有权利）。