ABSTRACT

Many veterans experience difficulties with mental health and functioning, yet many do not seek treatment and dropout rates are high. A small body of literature suggests that veterans prefer to work with providers or peer support specialists who are also veterans. Research with trauma-exposed veterans suggests that some veterans prefer to work with female providers. In an experimental study with 414 veterans, we examined whether veterans’ ratings of a psychologist (e.g., helpfulness, ability to understand the participant, likelihood of making an appointment) described in a vignette were impacted by the psychologist’s veteran status and gender. Results indicated that veterans who read about a veteran psychologist rated the psychologist as more able to help and understand them, reported being more willing to see and more comfortable seeing the psychologist, and reported greater belief that they should see the psychologist, relative to those who read about a non-veteran psychologist. Contrary to hypotheses, there was no main effect of psychologist gender nor any interaction between psychologist gender and psychologist veteran status on ratings. Findings suggest that having access to mental health providers who are also veterans may reduce barriers to treatment-seeking among veteran patients.

摘要

许多退伍军人在心理健康和功能方面遇到困难，但许多人不寻求治疗，辍学率很高。一小部分文献表明，退伍军人更愿意与也是退伍军人的提供者或同伴支持专家一起工作。对受过创伤的退伍军人进行的研究表明，一些退伍军人更愿意与女性提供者一起工作。在一项针对 414 名退伍军人的实验研究中，我们检查了退伍军人对小插图中描述的心理学家的评价（例如，乐于助人、理解参与者的能力、预约的可能性）是否受到心理学家的退伍军人身份和性别的影响。结果表明，阅读过一位资深心理学家的退伍军人认为该心理学家更有能力帮助和理解他们，报告说，与那些读过非资深心理学家的人相比，他们更愿意去看心理医生，也更愿意去看心理医生，并且更相信他们应该去看心理医生。与假设相反，心理学家性别没有主要影响，心理学家性别和心理学家退伍军人身份之间也没有任何交互作用。研究结果表明，获得同时也是退伍军人的心理健康服务提供者可能会减少退伍军人患者寻求治疗的障碍。