Study: Months after tour, mental issues show

Study: Months after tour, mental issues show
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Nov 14, 2007 11:53:55 EST

A new Army study finds that soldiers returning from the Iraq war are more likely to report mental health problems several months later rather than immediately following their return — and reserve component troops are twice as likely to report such problems with the passage of time.

On average, one in five active-duty soldiers and more than two in five reservists who served in Iraq, and were included in the study, required referral for mental health treatment, researchers said.

The study, the combined result of initial and follow-on post-deployment screenings of 88,235 active and reserve soldiers who filled out questionnaires between June 2005 and December 2006, validates a decision made two years ago to institute a follow-on mental health screening three to six months after returning home from the war, Army researchers said. It was the first-ever study of troops who had completed both screenings.

Marine Corps records were excluded, because while Marines also filled out the surveys, the follow-on questionnaire had not been widely distributed to Marine Corps units during the study period, so the results “may not be representative,” researchers said.

The Army team’s findings are being published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Col. (Dr.) Charles Milliken, an Army psychiatrist and principal investigator for the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research Division of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, called the effort “part of the Army’s continuing efforts to better understand the human dimension of war, the physical and the psychological impact of combat on our soldiers.”

The Army is doing the assessments, a combination of answers to survey questions and follow-ups by clinicians, in order to “reach out” to soldiers stressed by their deployments “and get them the care that they need,” Milliken said.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/11/military_mentalhealth_071113w/