Canadian Armed Forces Veterans’ Perspectives on the Effects of Exposure to Children in Armed Conflict During Military Service: Protocol for a Qualitative Study (Preprint)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND The mental health of military personnel has garnered increased attention over the last few decades; however, the impacts of perpetuating, observing, or failing to prevent acts that transgress deeply held moral standards, referred to as moral injuries, are less understood, particularly in relation to encounters with children during deployment. This paper describes a multiphased research protocol that centers around the lived experiences of Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Veterans to understand how encounters with children during military deployments impact the well-being and mental health of military personnel. OBJECTIVE This study has four objectives: (1) highlight the lived experiences of CAF Veterans who encountered children during military deployments; (2) improve understanding of the nature of experiences that military personnel faced that related to observing or engaging with children during military service; (3) improve understanding of the mental health impacts of encountering children during military service; and (4) use participatory action research (PAR) to develop recommendations for improving preparation, training, and support for military personnel deployed to contexts where encounters with children are likely. METHODS The research project has 2 main phases where phase 1 includes qualitative interviews with CAF Veterans who encountered children during military deployments and phase 2 uses PAR to actively engage Canadian Veterans with lived experiences of encountering children during military deployments, as well as health professionals and researchers to identify recommendations to better address the mental health effects of these encounters. RESULTS As of January 26, 2024, a total of 55 participants and research partners have participated in the 2 phases of the research project. A total of 16 CAF Veterans participated in phase 1 (qualitative interviews), and 39 CAF Veterans, health professionals, and researchers participated in phase 2 (PAR). The results for phase 1 have been finalized and are accepted for publication. Data collection and analysis are ongoing for phase 2. CONCLUSIONS Prioritizing and valuing the experiences of CAF Veterans has deepened our understanding of the intricate nature and impacts of potentially morally injurious events involving children during military deployments. Together with health professionals and researchers, the PAR approach empowers CAF Veterans to articulate important recommendations for developing and improving training and mental health support. This support is crucial not only during the deployment cycle but also throughout the military career, helping lessen the effects of moral injury among military personnel. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT DERR1-10.2196/57146
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.038 | 0.037 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.015 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.006 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.063 | 0.006 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".