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Repeated Iraq Deployments Raise Mental Health Risks for Soldiers •
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Army: Psychiatrists Needed on Warfronts
The Associated Press
Thursday 06 March 2008
Washington - U.S. troops on the battlefield found it harder to get the mental
health care they needed last year, when violence rose in Afghanistan and new
tactics pushed soldiers in Iraq farther from their operating bases.
A report the Army released Thursday recommends sending civilian psychiatrists
to the warfront, supplementing members of the uniformed mental health corps.
Surveying a force strained by its seventh year of war, officials found that
more than one in four soldiers on repeat tours of duty screened positive for
anxiety, depression and other mental health problems. That was comparable to
the previous year.
The report found more troops reported marital problems, an increased suicide
rate, higher morale in Iraq, but a greater percentage of depression among soldiers
in Afghanistan.
"They do show the effects of a long war," said Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry
consultant to Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker.
Added Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, a deputy surgeon general: "I think the fact
that they are doing as well as they are with the demands they are under speaks
to a strength and resiliency of the men and women of America."
The report was drawn from the work of a team of mental health experts who traveled
to the wars last fall. The experts 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 deployed there.
The recommendation of civilian mental health professionals for battlefield
duty is unusual. But civilian contract employees are doing many other jobs in
Iraq, from security to providing food service.
The report also recommended longer home time between deployments, more focused
suicide-prevention training and insurance coverage for marital and family counseling.
Among other findings were:
- More than 27 percent of troops on their third or fourth combat tour suffered
anxiety, depression, post-combat stress and other problems. That compared with
12 percent among those on their first tour.
- Suicide rates "remained elevated" in both Iraq and Afghanistan. There were
four in Afghanistan and 34 confirmed or suspected in Iraq. If all are confirmed,
it would be the highest rate since the war began.
- The percentage of soldiers 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. The adjusted rate last year for depression
in Afghanistan was 11.4 percent, compared with 7.6 percent in Iraq.
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.
- As fighting against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan worsened,
83 percent of soldiers there reported exposure to traumatic combat events -
a key factor in the risk for mental health among the troops.
- Having troops spread out and more isolated over the rugged terrain in a less
developed Afghanistan occasionally made it more difficult for them to get mental
health treatment.
- About 29 percent of soldiers in Iraq said it was difficult to get to mental
health specialists for help. That was among troops who had moved from bases
to combat outposts set up so they could be closer to the Iraq population. The
number among troops not at the outposts who had trouble getting help was only
13 percent.
- Soldiers who had 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 surveyed 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 20.6 percent, compared with 18.3 percent the
previous year.
- In Iraq, some 72 percent of soldiers reporting knowing someone seriously
injured or killed.
- Soldiers reported an average of 5.6 hours of sleep per day in Iraq - significantly
less than needed to maintain their best performance - yet officers appeared
to underestimate how it could have that effect.
- Nearly one-third of troops in Afghanistan were highly concerned that they
were not getting enough sleep and about a quarter reported falling asleep during
convoys last year. Sixteen percent reported taking mental health medications
and about half of those were sleep medications.
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On the Net:
Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil
Army mental health report: www.armymedicine.army.mil
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Repeated Iraq Deployments Raise Mental Health Risks for Soldiers
By Peter Spiegel
The Los Angeles Times
Thursday 06 March 2008
Those on their third or fourth tours of
duty are showing signs of depression or other disorders in higher numbers than
those on their first or second deployments.
Washington - More than a quarter of high-ranking enlisted soldiers showed signs
of having mental health problems after being sent to war zones for the third
or fourth time, a sharp increase over those on their first or second deployments.
The findings, contained in a new report on the behavioral health of soldiers
in Iraq issued by the Army on Thursday, are the first to quantify the stress
of repeated deployments on combat soldiers. The data are likely to increase
calls by senior Army leaders to cut down the length of combat tours and increase
the length of time soldiers have in between deployments.
Although the Army has been measuring the mental health of troops in Iraq since
the beginning of the war, the new study is the first to examine soldiers on
their third or fourth tours of duty.
It showed that 27.2% of noncommissioned officers - the sergeants responsible
for leading troops in combat - reported mental health problems during their
third or fourth tours. That was up from 18.5% for noncommissioned officers on
their second tour and only 11.9% of those on their first tour. Mental health
problems include signs of depression, anxiety and stress disorders.
The report detailed the findings of 2,295 soldiers in Iraq surveyed by Army
researchers during October and November of last year.
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peter.spiegel@latimes.com
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