Michelle L Kelley

Old Dominion University | ODU · Department of Psychology

Background Compared to civilians and non-medical personnel, military medical doctors are at increased risk for sleep disturbances and impaired psychological well-being. Despite their responsibility and workload, no research has examined sleep disturbances and psychological well-being among the medical doctors (MDs) of the Swiss Armed Forces (SAF)....

Objective : The present study assessed initial evidence of program feasibility, satisfaction, and pre-to post-intervention changes in moral injury symptoms among recent-era veterans who participated in Mindfulness to Manage Moral Injury (MMMI), a live facilitated web-based 7-week mindfulness-based program targeting moral injury among veterans. Meth...

Background: Bisexual women, compared to heterosexual women, report greater amounts of alcohol use and heavy drinking. Alcohol expectancies (i.e., beliefs about alcohol outcomes) are a strong predictor of alcohol use, but few studies have examined the importance of alcohol expectancies in relation to alcohol use among bisexual women specifically or...

Background: As compared to heterosexual and lesbian women, bisexual women report higher rates of alcohol, other substance use, and risky sexual behavior, and they experience more negative outcomes from these behaviors. Descriptive norms (i.e., perceptions of others' behavior) are an important predictor of risky behaviors, but scant research has exa...

Background Bisexual women have high rates of tobacco and cannabis use, but few studies have examined co-use behavior in this population. Although the role of distal minority stressors (eg, discrimination) on substance use has been examined, fewer studies have examined proximal minority stressors (eg, negative sexual identity self-schemas). The curr...

Background and Objectives According to the acquired preparedness model, personality traits, such as impulsivity, may influence the learning process, contributing to heightened expectations surrounding risky behaviors (i.e., alcohol use, sexual risk‐taking). As bisexual women demonstrate heightened risk for hazardous alcohol‐ and sex‐related behavio...

We examined whether higher levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and gender were associated with three dimensions of identity (i.e., commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration) and meaning in life (i.e., meaning in life and search for meaning) among recent-era veterans. Participants were 174 post-9/11 veterans (55.8% me...

Background Military service puts service members at risk for moral injury. Moral injury is an array of symptoms (e.g., guilt, shame, anger) that develop from events that violate or transgress one's moral code. Objective We describe adaption of in-person mindfulness training program, Mindfulness to Manage Chronic Pain (MMCP), to address symptoms of...

Research indicates that bisexual women experience greater stigmatization and discrimination compared to lesbian women. Such oppression is described as binegativity and is associated with alcohol use among bisexual women. Specifically, previous research has suggested that bisexual women may drink to cope in an effort to self-medicate from experience...

“Hooking up” is prevalent on college campuses and is related to both positive and negative outcomes for students. The current study was an exploratory examination of hookup motives, and positive and negative affect, related to the most recent hookup experience. Participants were 256 U.S. college students who reported hooking up in the last 12 month...

The present study examined a motivational pathway model whereby the relation between binegativity and alcohol-related problems was mediated by drinking to cope motives and alcohol consumption. The moderating role of impulsivity on the associations between binegativity, drinking to cope motives, and alcohol use outcomes was also examined. Data were...

Despite considerable evidence linking alcohol use and intimate partner aggression among mixed-sex couples, scant research has examined this association in same-sex couples using a dyadic framework. The aim of the present study was to examine associations between one’s own and their partner’s alcohol use (i.e., drinks per week, hazardous alcohol use...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder associated with negative mental health problems. Rumination is a multifaceted cognitive process of uncontrollable thoughts similar to worry and is associated with greater severity of PTSD symptoms. Relationships between PTSD, rumination, and mental health problems have been identified i...

Background Impulsivity is positively associated with alcohol use. However, scant research has used person-centered approaches to examine how patterns of impulsivity facets may be associated with alcohol-related outcomes. Consequently, the present study sought to (1) identify latent groups of individuals who share similarities based on the five face...

Objective: Moral injury (an inner conflict [or cognitive dissonance] used to describe psychological, ethical, and/or spiritual conflict experienced when an individual's basic sense of humanity is violated) has been associated with suicidal ideation among military populations. However, mechanisms linking moral injury to suicidal ideation, particula...

Objective: Brief computer-delivered interventions (CDIs) reduce college student drinking and related problems but can be less efficacious and enduring than in-person interventions. The present study examined: (a) the utility of emailed personalized boosters after an evidence-based online CDI for alcohol (i.e., eCHECKUP TO GO), and (b) the added val...

Objective: Bisexual women drink more and have more alcohol consequences than heterosexual and lesbian women. This higher risk may in part be attributable to sexual orientation microaggressions. Drinking to cope motivations and alcohol demand may influence the association between microaggressions and alcohol use. The present study used a daily diary...

Reintegration to civilian life among service members can be understood through the lens of a transformation in an individual’s identity structure. However, limited research has examined the unique impact of military, U.S., and personal identity on mental health and substance use among veterans. The goal of the present study was to examine the relat...

Previous research suggests that bisexual women’s rate of cannabis use is 2 to 7 times higher than their heterosexual peers; however, factors contributing to this are unclear. Trait impulsivity (i.e., tendency to act without forethought) and history of childhood physical abuse (CPA) are two risk factors that may be relevant for bisexual women’s cann...

Objectives: U.S. Air Force (USAF) intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) personnel continuously view high-resolution, real-time imagery and video feeds that include intermittent exposure to graphic events. This brief report examined whether cumulative exposure (still imagery, video, and audio) to graphic events was associated with po...

Moral injury is an array of symptoms theorized to develop in response to morally injurious events, defined as events that challenge one’s core moral beliefs and expectations about the self, others, and world. Recent measures of moral injury have distinguished self-directed moral injury (e.g., moral injury symptoms that emerge following the perpetra...

Moral injury and post-traumatic stress disorder are argued to be distinct yet related constructs. However, few studies have evaluated the factors distinguishing moral injury from PTSD. The present study sought to extend the work of Bryan et al. (2018) by differentiating the symptomology of moral injury and PTSD and their associations with suicidal...

Given over 2.77 million U.S. service members have been deployed in the past 20 years and the intense process of reintegration to civilian life, understanding factors that contribute to veterans’ mental health and substance use is critical. This study sought to understand the effects of U.S. identity exploration, U.S. identity commitment, U.S. ident...

Under conditions of inherent or induced mitochondrial dysfunction, cancer cells manifest overlapping metabolic phenotypes, suggesting that they may be targeted via a common approach. Here, we use multiple oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS)–competent and incompetent cancer cell pairs to demonstrate that treatment with α-ketoglutarate (aKG) esters el...

This study sought to examine the associations between parental identity commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitments with mental health outcomes (i.e., symptoms of depression and generalized anxiety). Furthermore, the current study examined differences in associations between both current and expecting parents. A diverse cro...

In the present study, we tested the effectiveness of a Theory of Planned Behavior-based cyberbullying bystander video on three outcomes: joining the bully, helping the victim, and doing nothing as compared to a control group. University students (M = 23.68 years old; female = 78.7%), were randomly assigned to a cyberbullying bystander (n = 113) or...

G protein‐coupled receptors (GPCRs) comprise the largest group of membrane receptors in eukaryotic genomes and collectively they regulate nearly all cellular processes. Despite the widely recognized importance of this class of proteins, many GPCRs remain understudied. G protein‐coupled receptor 27 (Gpr27) is an orphan GPCR that displays high conser...

Although major depressive disorder (MDD) is a frequent diagnosis among women seeking care in the Veterans Health Administration, little is known about its course. For example, recurrence of MDD and its predictors have been investigated in civilians, but not among female veterans. Because female veterans differ from their civilian counterparts and f...

Although personal identity development has been conceptualized as a source of psychological stability and protective against depressive symptoms among Hispanic immigrants, there remains ambiguity regarding the directional relationship between identity development and depression. To address this limitation, the current study sought to establish dire...

The present study used mediation analysis to examine the associations among morally injurious events (MIEs), moral injury, and suicidality in a sample of 285 Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans. Additionally, moderated mediation analysis was used to examine rumination and mindfulness as potential moderators of the MIE, m...

It has been well documented that alcohol use is a risk factor for sexual assault. However, few studies have examined how alcohol use is associated with sexual coercion experiences. Furthermore, off-campus parties and bars are drinking locations where alcohol use is high among college students. It is important to determine other risk factors, such a...

Potentially morally injurious experiences (PMIEs) are events that may violate deeply held values or belief systems. Combat engagement places service members at a heightened risk for PMIE exposure. Exposure to PMIEs may elicit internal conflict between moral beliefs and experiences and, if unresolved, conflict may manifest as feelings of guilt, sham...

Background: Chronic pain conditions are common among both male and female Iraq/Afghanistan-era veterans and can have substantial negative impacts on quality of life and function. Although in general women tend to report higher levels of pain intensity than men, findings remain mixed on whether gender differences in pain exist in Iraq/Afghanistan-e...

Mindfulness-based approaches have been suggested as possible methods to treat moral injury in military personnel. However, empirical research has yet to evaluate if mindfulness acts as a protective factor for the possible negative effects of moral injury, such as alcohol use, drug use, or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. In this study...

Moral injury is hypothesized to develop from witnessing or engaging in events that violate one's beliefs about oneself and has been shown to be associated with negative mental health symptoms. Although there has been an increase in research examining moral injury among military veterans, mechanisms that link moral injury to mental health outcomes a...

Numerous studies have demonstrated that combat-exposed military veterans are at risk for numerous psychiatric disorders and rates of comorbid mental health and substance use disorders are high. Veterans wounded in combat are a particularly high-risk group of military veterans; however, treatment services are often underutilized among this group and...

Objective: Among combat veterans, moral injury (i.e., the guilt, shame, inability to forgive one's self and others, and social withdrawal associated with one's involvement in events that occurred during war or other missions) is associated with a host of negative mental health symptoms, including suicide. To better inform and tailor prevention and...

In the present study, the authors tested a sequential mediation model whereby binegativity was associated with sexual coercion through drinking-to-cope motives and alcohol use. Data were examined from 224 self-identified bisexual women (M age = 22.79, SD = 3.44) who took part in an online survey. Participants reported binegativity, alcohol use, dri...

Background: Military veterans wounded in combat are a high-risk group for emotional and physical distress, which may be exacerbated by misuse of prescription opioids and sedatives. The goal of the current study was to examine the prevalence and correlates of prescription opioid and sedative misuse among veterans wounded in combat. Method: We rec...

Bisexual women drink more than lesbian and heterosexual women. However, few studies have examined factors that influence drinking among bisexual women. Although descriptive drinking norms are strong predictors of drinking, little research has examined how drinking norms influence alcohol use for bisexual women. The present study examined bisexual w...

The authors would like to note a couple of errors in Table 3 of the originally published manuscript. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

This cross-sectional study examined whether depressive symptoms strengthened the relationship between different forms of sexual coercion victimization and drinking to cope motivations, which was hypothesized to influence alcohol use. Participants were 214 female undergraduates who completed an online survey. Participants who experienced any lifetim...

Objective: This study examines potential sex differences in 3 types of experiences (i.e., atrocities of war, cognitive and emotional changes from combat, and leadership failure or betrayal) that may result in moral injury (i.e., guilt, shame, inability to forgive one's self, inability to forgive others, and withdrawn behavior associated with these...

BACKGROUND The Healthy People 2020 initiative aims to reduce health disparities, including alcohol use, among sexual minority women (SMW; e.g., lesbian, bisexual, queer, pansexual). Compared to heterosexual women, SMW engage in more hazardous drinking and report more alcohol-related problems. Sexual minority stress (i.e., the unique experiences ass...

Background: The Healthy People 2020 initiative aims to reduce health disparities, including alcohol use, among sexual minority women (SMW; eg, lesbian, bisexual, queer, and pansexual). Compared with heterosexual women, SMW engage in more hazardous drinking and report more alcohol-related problems. Sexual minority stress (ie, the unique experiences...

Objective: Although killing in combat is associated with negative mental health outcomes and hazardous alcohol use, mechanisms that underlie this risk are not well understood. To our knowledge, this present brief report is the first to use mediation analysis to examine associations between killing in combat, distinct facets of rumination (problem-...

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. There is an error within Table 2. The influence of Female diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder (column 2) on Female perpetration of violence should be listed as B = 12.41, SE = 5.82, beta = 0.389, p = .033. © 2018 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer N...

Moral injury (MI) results from perpetration of or exposure to distressing events, known as morally injurious events (MIEs), that challenge moral beliefs and values. Due to the type of involvement in recent military conflicts, many veterans report MIEs that may cause dissonance and, in turn, MI. Although 2 existing measures assess MIEs, neither curr...

The present study examined the degree to which morally injurious experiences (MIEs; i.e., atrocities of war, psychological consequences of war, and leadership failure/betrayal) and moral injury (i.e., guilt, shame, difficulties with forgiveness, and withdrawal associated with exposure to MIEs) were associated with symptoms of depression, anxiety, p...

Previous research on trait mindfulness facets using person-centered analyses (e.g., latent profile analysis [LPA]) has identified four distinct mindfulness profiles among college students: a high mindfulness group (high on all facets of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire [FFMQ]), a judgmentally observing group (highest on observing, but low o...

Background: Given higher sexual victimization and greater alcohol use among bisexual women, a critical public health challenge is to understand within-group variation that may heighten or explain these associations in bisexual women. Objectives: The present study tested a moderated-mediation model in which sexual coercion was hypothesized to be...

The present study examined whether work stressors contribute to sleep problems and depressive symptoms over the course of deployment (i.e. pre-deployment, post-deployment and 6-month reintegration) among US Navy members. Specifically, we examined whether depressive symptoms or sleep quality mediate the relationships between work stressors and these...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious and common problem in the relationships of gay men and lesbians, yet interventions to address same‐sex IPV have not been developed and evaluated. This chapter reviews the empirical literature regarding sexual‐minority‐specific and general risk factors for same‐sex IPV and barriers to seeking treatment. I...

Using an actor-partner interdependence model, we examined whether veterans’ posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) contributed to partners’ drug abuse symptoms, whether partners’ drug abuse symptoms contributed to intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration, and whether drug abuse symptoms mediated PTSS-IPV perpetration associations. Participants we...

This brief report examined the unique associations between parents’ ratings of child internalizing symptoms and their own depression and anxiety in families with parental substance use disorder (SUD). Further, we examined whether parental SUD (father only, mother only, both parents) was related to discrepancy in mothers’ and fathers’ reports of chi...

This study examined the association between parent and family reported history of non-PTSD mental illness (MI), PTSD specifically, and substance use problems, and participant clinical diagnosis of PTSD. Participants were drawn from the US Department of Veterans Affairs Mid-Atlantic Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC) Pos...

Few studies have attempted to examine how changes in work stressors from predeployment to postdeployment and reintegration may be associated with changes in mental health symptoms and hazardous drinking. The present study examined associations between work stressors, depressive symptoms, and hazardous drinking, and whether depressive symptoms media...

In the present study, we examined associations between fathers’ and mothers’ mental health symptoms as related to their own and their partner’s parenting in couples in which fathers (n = 38 families) or both partners (n = 30 families) had substance use disorder. Each partner reported on symptoms of depression, anxiety, and hostility; children repor...

The present study examined how interparental violence, neighborhood violence, behavioral regulation during parental conflict, and age predicted beliefs about the acceptability of aggression and the acceptance of retaliation against an aggressive peer among youths. Participants were 110 families (mothers, fathers, and children) in which one or both...

Objective: To examine pain symptoms and co-occurring psychiatric and functional indices in male and female Iraq/Afghanistan-era veterans. Design: Self-reported data collection and interviews of Iraq/Afghanistan-era veterans who participated in a multi-site study of post-deployment mental health. Setting: Veterans were enrolled at one of four par...

This study examined how work stressors were associated with sleep quality and alcohol-related problems among U.S. Navy members over the course of deployment. Participants were 101 U.S. Navy members assigned to an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer who experienced an 8-month deployment after Operational Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom. Approxima...

The current study replicated and extended recent research findings on the effects of social support on rates of depression and hazardous alcohol use. Participants were 63 U.S. Navy members assigned to an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer who experienced an 8-month deployment after Operational Enduring Freedom (OEF)/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Approx...

This study examined the secondary effects of Behavioral Couples Treatment (BCT) for parents with substance use disorder on youth reports of internalizing symptoms (i.e., depressive and anxiety symptoms). Participants were 59 triads (father, mothers, and youth; 32 girls, 27 boys) in which one or both parents met criteria for drug or alcohol use diso...

The present study tested Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) as an explanation of electronic communication safe behavioral intentions and behaviors and cyberbullying victimization. We recruited 577 college students who completed a battery of surveys examining PMT-based constructs and cyberbullying victimization. We found that higher perceived suscep...

The present study examined associations between stress and problematic alcohol use among US Navy members anticipating deployment, whether depressive symptoms mediated the stress-alcohol link, and whether social support and relationship satisfaction moderated associations between stress, depressive symptoms, and problematic alcohol use. Participants...

The present study examined whether pre-military sexual and physical abuse and negative mental health symptoms prior to military service contributed to hazardous alcohol use (i.e., alcohol-related consequences, dependency symptoms, and consumption) controlling for combat exposure. Participants were a community sample of 506 (183 women) active duty,...

The current study examined how antisocial personality disorder (APD) and substance use disorder contributed to partners’ reports of physical partner violence among single and dual substance-abusing couples. Participants were 69 heterosexual couples entering treatment in which one or both partners met criteria for substance use disorder. APD diagnos...

Background: Although the majority of research on partner drinking styles has examined married couples, dating partners may influence one another's problem behaviors including alcohol use. Objectives: This study identified patterns of at-risk alcohol use in college women and their dating partners using a person-centered statistical approach (i.e....

The focus of the current study was to identity mental health, relationship factors, substance use related problems, and individual factors as predictors of couples-based substance abuse treatment initiation and attendance. Heterosexual couples with children that met study criteria were invited to attend 12 sessions of outpatient behavioral couples...

The present study examined whether emotional reactivity mediated the association between interparental violence, parental hostility, and children’s worrying among 90 youth living with substance-abusing parents. Children completed measures of security and anxiety. Mothers and fathers’ completed measures of violence perpetrated toward their partners...

Lesbians report experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) at rates greater than or equal to those reported by heterosexual women. However, relatively little is known about the underlying mechanisms contributing to IPV perpetration among lesbians. In the present study we tested a conceptual model of the relationship among general life stressors,...

Objective: This study proposed and tested the first conceptual model of sexual minority specific (discrimination, internalized homophobia) and more general risk factors (perpetrator and partner alcohol use, anger, relationship satisfaction) for intimate partner violence among partnered lesbian women. Method: Self-identified lesbian women (N=1048...

Risk for child abuse was examined prior to and after behavioral couples treatment (BCT) among 61 couples in which one or both parents were diagnosed with substance use disorder (SUD). All couples were residing with one or more school-age children. Mothers and fathers completed pretreatment, post-intervention, and 6-month post-intervention follow-up...

Few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of cyberbullying prevention/intervention programs. The goals of the present study were to develop a Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)-based video program to increase cyberbullying knowledge (1) and empathy toward cyberbullying victims (2), reduce favorable attitudes toward cyberbullying (3), decrease posit...

This study examined the association between relationship adjustment and discrepant alcohol use among lesbian women and their same-sex intimate partners after controlling for verbal and physical aggression. Lesbian women (N = 819) who were members of online marketing research panels completed an online survey in which they reported both their own an...

This study examined the relationship between emotional distress (defined as depression, brooding, and negative affect), alcohol outcomes, and bidirectional intimate partner violence among lesbian women. Results lend support to the self-medication hypothesis, which predicts that lesbian women who experience more emotional distress are more likely to...

The present brief report examined whether number of deployments, relationship satisfaction, and the interaction between number of deployments and relationship satisfaction predicted Navy members' reports of perpetrating physical partner violence. Participants were 80 U.S. Navy members assigned to an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer anticipating an 8-m...

Children with substance abusing parents are at considerable risk for child maltreatment. The current study applied an actor-partner interdependence model to examine how father only (n=52) and dual couple (n=33) substance use disorder, as well as their depressive symptomology influenced parents' own (actor effects) and the partner's (partner effects...