Literature search

A body of relevant publications was compiled through a systematic search of the electronic database system of the University of Ulm, which includes 5083 databases such as PubMed, EBSCOhost, Web of Science, and PsycARTICLES. The keywords used were (milit* families OR soldier OR army OR veteran OR deployment) AND (child* OR adolescen* OR family) AND (mental health OR mental illness OR mental disorder OR psychiatric illness OR psychiatric disorder). Moreover, eight websites referring to military projects were included [22–29] to identify studies outside the academic publishing. If applicable, relevant publications that were not captured by the keywords but were cited in a retrieved article were manually searched as well.

Three researchers took part in the search. One, designated the independent reviewer, checked the abstracts of all the identified articles and discarded the vast majority as clearly irrelevant, including non-empirical studies, dissertations, and studies that did not involve children or did not include at least one parent in military service. The other two researchers then reviewed the full texts of the articles that remained for relevance. In cases of disagreement, the independent reviewer acted as a mediator. Discrepancies were resolved through discussion until consensus was reached by at least two of the three reviewers. The articles deemed to be relevant were then further assessed according to the criteria below.