The Voices of Veteran Women Shared with the World: Experiences of Military Sexual Trauma

Through the cumulative work of this dissertation, I sought to provide a new perspective on the experience of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) through the voices of veteran women who shared their stories with the world through the internet. This approach had three sequential segments: (a) an integrative literature review, (b) an innovative methodology approach involving the application of the netnographic method, and (c) a qualitative research study. First, I present an integrative review of current MST literature. After the evaluation of thirteen studies common findings were the numerous barriers to disclosure that women veterans encountered, as well as the negative impact of disclosing their MST experience. That review did not find any published research in which veteran women who had experienced MST shared their experience online. However, there was one paper that utilized the methodology of netnography and discussed male veterans sharing their PTSD experience online. An innovative methodology exploration was then conducted to better understand how to conduct a netnographic study while maintaining the existentialist phenomenological approach to data analysis. Lastly, the qualitative study was conducted by implementing netnography and existential phenomenology to understand and convey the meaning of the lived experience of MST. The publicly available videos on YouTube and TikTok posted by veteran women were transcribed and thematically analyzed, which revealed the essence of the phenomenon “Building back something remarkable from the shattered pieces.” Ten Figural Themes were identified in the context of the experience: (1) Wanted to serve (2) The assault (3) Lasting impacts of the assault (4) Disbelieved & Blamed (5) Silenced (6) You are not alone (7) Block out the Trauma (8) You do not belong (9) Thank you for serving, bye (10) Getting my life back, In conclusion complementary and integrative treatment modalities are discussed as they have shown to be beneficial in this population. Having a firm understanding of the experiences of MST survivors can further support nurses and other healthcare professionals in providing effective and trauma-informed care.