The Relationship between Military-Civilian Transition, Psychological Well-Being and Social Adjustment among Retired Military Personnel in Ghana

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between military-civilian transition, psychological well-being and social adjustment among military personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces. It further examined the effect of gender on the relationship between military-civilian transition and psychological well-being. This was determinant on two facts. Ex-Servicemen and women had to deal not only with life after retirement which every retiree goes through but also life after the military. Secondly transition is not a singular event, but a continuous spatial process that is marked by a disjuncture between the lives lived in the military and civilian spaces. This is often due to their intense socialization which involves being stripped of a civilian identity and adopting a military identity and culture making transitioning back to civilian world challenging. Ahundred and fifty-five (155) Non-commissioned officers both active and retired were purposively sampled from the Greater Accra and Volta regions. Using a quantitative design, all selected participants completed questionnaires on military-civilian transition, psychological well-being and social adjustment. The Multiple Analysis of Variance, Simple Linear Regression and Hierarchical Multiple Regression were conducted on the data. The results indicated that, military-civilian transition significantly predicted psychological well-being and social adjustment. The result further indicated that, gender significantly moderated the relationship between military-civilian transition and psychological well-being. Based on the research findings, theoretical and practical implications are discussed as well as limitations and suggestions for future research were also highlighted