A recent study suggests that army wives married to soldiers who are sent to war suffered a significantly higher percentage of mental health issues than those whose husbands stayed home. The study was the largest of its kind, done on the emotional impact of war on Army wives.

According to findings which will be published this week in the New Journal of Medicine, those wives whose husbands were deployed for more than 11 months at the war front, had a higher chance of suffering from mental issues.

The study shows wives of soldiers deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan between one and 11 months had an 18 percent higher probability of suffering from depression than those whose husbands did not go to war.

About 250,000 army wives were surveyed during the study and it was found that two-thirds of these had husbands who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan between the years 2003 and 2006.

Alyssa Mansfield, an epidemiologist with RTI International, a non-profit research organization, and lead author on the study said, “There's a very clear relationship between deployment and these mental health diagnoses in these women, we find that these women are experiencing greater mental health problems and there's a need for services for them.”