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© Author(s) 2008. This is an open access article licensed under the Creative Commons 
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by-nc-nd/4.0/)
	 	 Sodobni	vojaški	izzivi,	oktober	2022	–	24/št.4
	 	 Contemporary	Military	Challenges,	October	2022	–	24/No.	4
At the end of the summer, the publishing house of the Faculty of Social Sciences 
published a new monograph noting in the colophon that this is a revised and 
updated version of the monograph entitled Military families' health and well-being, 
published by Springer Nature Switzerland in English. The title of the Slovenian 
version of the book can be translated as socio-ecological models of health, male and 
female servicemembers and their families. It is authored by Janja Vuga Beršnak, 
Živa Humer, Jelena Juvan, Andreja Živoder, Ljubica Jelušič, Alenka Švab, Klemen 
Kocjančič and Bojana Lobe.
It was produced within a basic scientific project (J5-1786) funded by Slovenian 
Research Agency and led by Janja Vuga Beršnak.
The scientific monograph is 322 pages long and divided into 11 chapters. In addition 
to the introduction and conclusion, it includes sections that translate as the following: 
families in the whirlwind of social change in late modernism; social circumstances 
in Slovenia; the military institutional and legislative framework of family support, a 
theoretical model of military-specific risk or protective factors for health outcomes 
of military families; the health of military families in Slovenia; the health risk of 
military families compared to civilian families: a regression analysis; the impact of 
stress on the health of military families; growing up in a military family: an adult 
child's perspective, and socio-ecological models of the impact of military-specific 
and other risk factors on the health and well-being of service members and their 
families.
The monograph was reviewed by Branimir Furlan, Anton Grizold, Tanja Rener and 
Nataša Troha.
REVIEW
Liliana Brožič
ECOSYSTEM OF A MILITARY FAMILY AND 
THE SPECIFIC RISK FACTORS AFFECTING 
ITS HEALTH AND WELL-BEING 
DOI:10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.24.4.REW
 120 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
Furlan mentions that at the end of the monograph, the reader might conclude that 
military families, with all the obligations, dynamics and stress that accompany them, 
are a major problem for Slovenian society. He points out that the findings of the 
research carried out by the authors are quite the opposite. Military families are more 
flexible, often more cohesive and more resilient than civilian families.
Grizold points to the in-depth interviews with adult members of families who grew 
up in a military family as an important acquisition and innovation in the study of 
military organisation and military families. In their youth, they had to face the 
long-term absence of one (or even both) of their parents due to military assignments 
abroad, or they had to leave their social environment for several years and readjust 
to a new one.
Rener emphasises the authors' use of Bronfenbrenner's model of socio-ecological 
levels, focusing on military families and observing the factors influencing them, as 
important for the research. The authors identified the following health indicators: 
(dis)satisfaction with partner relationship, intimate partner violence, parenthood, 
child well-being, excessive use of psychoactive substances, depression, post-
traumatic stress disorder and general health and well-being.
In her review, Troha, like Furlan, pointed out the findings of the research that military 
families are more resilient compared to the families from civilian backgrounds, 
which cannot, however, be attributed entirely to the Slovenian Armed Forces, but 
rather to the partners employed in the Slovenian Armed Forces.
The monograph brings many new and useful information for the military and civilian 
environment, for scholars and professionals, for the many employees of the national 
security system, for individuals who want to better understand their profession 
and the particularities that make it more challenging than others, and above all for 
children and their experience of the military profession and the military family.
Its findings may also motivate non-military, or as the authors call them, civilian 
families, to cope with daily responsibilities and stress. Through this monograph, 
we can better understand what it is that defines the military profession as more 
demanding and what military families can do despite it all.
Liliana Brožič