Flourishing, social participation and reintegration difficulties: a 2-year cohort study of US military veterans with invisible injuries.
Nicholas A Rattray, Mindy Flanagan, Richard M Frankel and 1 others
Reintegration difficulties stayed flat over two years in 75 veterans with invisible injuries, while community participation improved.
Better participation and fewer reintegration problems went hand in hand with greater well-being and more social support.
Key findings
1Reintegration difficulty scores (M2C-Q) did not change significantly over the two-year period (p = .14), while community participation scores (CRIS-CAT) improved significantly (p < .001).
2Improvements in community participation were associated with higher physical health scores and greater flourishing, while reductions in reintegration difficulties were associated with more social support, greater flourishing, and fewer somatic symptoms.
3Social support and flourishing scores were significantly higher at 24 months than at 6 months, while somatic symptoms, mental health, and physical health scores did not change significantly over the study period.
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What it does not show
The sample was small (75 veterans) and drawn from specific VA settings, so findings may not generalize to all veterans. No intervention was tested and there was no comparison group, so the study cannot show that anything caused the changes it observed. Data collection spanned 2020 to 2022, during the pandemic, and the authors note this may have affected participation scores. 36% of participants (27 of 75) missed at least one assessment wave, though those with missing data did not differ significantly from completers on baseline scores.
Declared interests
Supported by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Rehabilitation Research and Development (D2642-W) under a Career Development Award 2. The authors declared that financial support was received for the work and/or its publication.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the improvement in participation scores as evidence that a specific intervention or natural recovery process is working. This was an observational study with no comparison group, and data collection spanned the COVID-19 pandemic, which the authors note may have affected participation scores.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →