Lost in Transition: The Barriers to Reintegration for Australian Military Veterans – A Scoping Review

This scoping review synthesises evidence on the system-level barriers Australian veterans and their families encounter during post-service reintegration, with a particular focus on accessing resources across the health, social, and community domains. A structured search of seven databases (CINAHL, JBI EBP Database, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) and Google Scholar identified 509 studies published between 2013 and 2024, of which, 16 met the inclusion criteria. The findings reveal significant challenges, including fragmented service coordination, limited accessibility, employment-related constraints, and low awareness of entitlements and available supports. Although the military-to-civilian transition is widely recognised as a vulnerable period, existing research tends to prioritise psychosocial outcomes, leaving the structural and institutional barriers underexamined. While grounded in the Australian context, this review offers insights relevant to other Five Eyes nations and calls for more cohesive transition programs and integrated support systems to improve long-term reintegration trajectories.