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Troop Depression on Rise in Afghanistan
The Associated Press
Thursday 06 March 2008
Washington - U.S. troop morale improved in Iraq last year, but soldiers fighting
in Afghanistan suffered more depression as violence there worsened, an Army
mental health report says.
And in a recurring theme for a force strained by its seventh year at war, the
annual battlefield study found once again that soldiers on their third and fourth
tours of duty had sharply greater rates of mental health problems than those
on their first or second deployments, according to several officials familiar
with the report.
All spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the findings ahead of the study's
release Thursday.
The report was drawn from the work of a team of mental health experts who traveled
to the wars last fall and surveyed more than 2,200 soldiers in Iraq and nearly
900 in Afghanistan. In the fifth such effort, the team also gathered information
from more than 400 medical professionals, chaplains, psychiatrists, psychologists
and other mental health workers serving with the troops.
Officials said they found rates of mental health problems such as anxiety,
depression and post-combat stress were similar to those found the previous year
in Iraq, when nearly 30 percent of troops on repeat tours said they suffered
a problem.
It was unclear how the new data might relate to a recent report showing that
as many as 121 Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007, an increase of about
20 percent over the year before. The preliminary figures released in January
said that there were 89 confirmed suicides last year and 32 deaths that were
suspected suicides and still under investigation.
"Although we have had many successes, there are also areas of concern," Lt.
Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, said in testimony prepared
for a congressional committee hearing.
Soldiers in Afghanistan had rates of mental health problems similar to those
in Iraq in 2007 with the exception of depression, officials said the new study
showed. The percentage reporting depression in Afghanistan was higher than that
in Iraq, and mental health problems in general were higher than they had previously
been in Afghanistan. They gave no statistics, but a 2004 study conducted in
the states with troops before and after they deployed to Afghanistan found that
roughly one in 10 developed a mental health problem requiring treatment.
Though U.S. troops suffered their highest level of casualties in both campaigns
last year, that came as violence was decreasing in the five-year-old Iraq conflict
and increasing in Afghanistan, now in its seventh year.
Troops' mental health problems are linked directly to the amount of exposure
they have to combat, and officials said that last year the level of violence
was more pronounced in some places of Afghanistan than it was in Iraq. Some
83 percent of soldiers in Afghanistan reported being exposed to mortar fire
and similar action as fighting heated up against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters,
compared with 72 percent in Iraq, according to the study.
Having troops spread out and more isolated over the rugged terrain in a less
developed Afghanistan made it necessary at times to bring soldiers in by helicopter
when they needed mental health care, one official said. After the survey was
taken, mental health professionals were dispersed more to put them nearer to
the forces they serve, he said.
Officials said other findings included:
- Soldiers who underwent special "Battlemind" training reported fewer problems
than those who did not. The program teaches troops and families what to expect
before soldiers leave for the wars and what common problems to look for when
readjusting to home life after deployment.
- Progress was made toward reducing the fear and embarrassment that keeps soldiers
from asking for help with mental health problems. In 2007, 29 percent of those
surveyed in Iraq said they feared seeking treatment would hurt their careers,
down from 34 percent the previous year.
- Eleven percent of those polled in Iraq said their unit's morale was high
or very high, compared with 7 percent the previous year. Individual morale was
reported high or very high among 20 percent, compared with 18 percent the previous
year.
Sending mental health advisory teams to do extensive surveys and focus groups
in the combat theater of operations was a groundbreaking effort when started
in 2003, the year the U.S. invaded Iraq. The goal is to assess how troops are
doing at the warfront and how well behavioral health services provided by the
military are working for the force.
Extensive reports have been produced after each survey and they have led directly
to changes in the way services are delivered in the combat theater.
Among changes considered this year is whether more mental health workers might
be needed at the war front. Since all troops there over the past year have been
serving extended 15-month tours instead of 12 - and a larger number were there
for repeat tours - officials questioned whether the ratio of mental health
workers-to-troops that was appropriate in 2003 and 2004 is appropriate now,
Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry consultant to Schoomaker, told a recent news
conference.
The number deployed to Iraq has been pretty much consistent throughout the
war - averaging about 200 psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, psychiatric
nurses and technicians, Ritchie said.
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