title: Women's stress in compulsory army service in Israel: A gendered perspective.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A growing number of women are serving in the military in a variety of roles, yet information on their experience of stressors not associated with either combat or sexual harassment is not commonly reported.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To present phenomenological data on stressors experienced in military service, together with the use of coping strategies as a way to focus on women's mental needs following deployment from service.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty women who had recently completed their compulsory army service in Israel drew a picture expressing stressors they experienced in the army. They analyzed their own pictures on three levels: the content, context, and the composition as expressing stress and the resources they used in coping with stress.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Six themes were raised: proximity to war situations, coping with accidents in training soldiers under their command, a conflict between political values and military orders, witnessing the injury of another female soldier, responsibility for accidental injury of a civilian, and distress over the army placement.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Coping resources were relational, primarily family and friend support, rather than from the army framework. This reliance on relational sources of support was both a resource and a source of vulnerability and is viewed as distinct from men's style of coping.
authors.affiliation: The Center for Women's Health Studies and Promotion, The Spitzer Department of Social Work, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel.
authors.forename: Ephrat
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Huss
authors.affiliation: The Center for Women's Health Studies and Promotion, The Spitzer Department of Social Work, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel.
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cwikel
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D017406:Sexual Harassment / Q000523:psychology; D012944:Social Support; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000523:psychology; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Arts based research; Israel Defense Forces; PTSD symptoms; self-in-relation model