Study Shows Combat Stress Aid Falls Short

[zimv20]

AP (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/soldier_stress)


WASHINGTON - Less than one-quarter of the U.S. military's Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who show signs of post-traumatic stress are referred for additional mental health treatment or evaluation, a government study finds.

The report released Thursday said about 5 percent of the veterans interviewed after they returned from combat tours appeared at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder. Of those, about 22 percent are referred for more health care.

The Government Accountability Office said the Defense Department cannot guarantee that those who need referrals get them, and there appear to be inconsistencies in how health care workers from the different military services determine who needs a referral.

The investigative arm of Congress found that 9,145 of the 178,664 service members reviewed may have been at risk of combat stress. Also, 2,029 were referred for additional help.

(more)

i find it very hard to believe that, with nearly 18,000 US soldiers wounded in iraq (http://icasualties.org/oif/woundedchart.aspx), only half that number may have combat stress. and that only 1 in 9 of the wounded got any help.

realistically, i'd expect at least 40% of returning soldiers to have some form of PTSD. not 1.1%.

[zimv20]

AP (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1959215&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312)


Paper: Military Ignoring Mental Illness

HARTFORD, Conn. May 13, 2006 (AP)— U.S. military troops with severe psychological problems have been sent to Iraq or kept in combat, even when superiors have been aware of signs of mental illness, a newspaper reported for Sunday editions.

The Hartford Courant, citing records obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act and more than 100 interviews of families and military personnel, reported numerous cases in which the military failed to follow its own regulations in screening, treating and evacuating mentally unfit troops from Iraq.

In 1997, Congress ordered the military to assess the mental health of all deploying troops. The newspaper, citing Pentagon statistics, said fewer than 1 in 300 service members were referred to a mental health professional before shipping out for Iraq as of October 2005.

Twenty-two U.S. troops committed suicide in Iraq last year, accounting for nearly one in five of all non-combat deaths and the highest suicide rate since the war started, the newspaper said.

Some service members who committed suicide in 2004 and 2005 were kept on duty despite clear signs of mental distress, sometimes after being prescribed antidepressants with little or no mental health counseling or monitoring, the Courant reported. Those findings conflict with regulations adopted last year by the Army that caution against the use of antidepressants for "extended deployments."

"I can't imagine something more irresponsible than putting a soldier suffering from stress on (antidepressants), when you know these drugs can cause people to become suicidal and homicidal," said Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a New York-based advocacy group. "You're creating chemically activated time bombs."

Although Defense Department standards for enlistment disqualify recruits who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, the military also is redeploying service members to Iraq who fit that criteria, the newspaper said.

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[blackfox]

Not that this refutes anything posted, but isn't it military procedure to have a support-combat ratio of about 5-1? Meaning that for every soldier on combat missions, there are 5 supporting him/her.

So w/o knowing troop rotation or any other policy on-the-ground, couldn't it be said that a much lower % of total troops are even put in situations that would risk trauma? I have read a huge % of troops spend their time in fortified FOB's, which are pretty close to a suburban pod - with mcdonalds, movie theatres and the like...

[solvs]

You'd be surprised. The stories I hear from those I know in the military make you really wonder about those who claim to support the troops. In one case, they didn't want to pay to remove shrapnel out of a guys arm, saying he couldn't prove it was from combat in Iraq because there was no paperwork on it. Eventually they did, after threat of a lawsuit, but that's not even the worst story I've heard. It sickens me how badly we treat our troops.

[pseudobrit]

I know when my brother got back he bought a handgun straight away because he couldn't stand being without a weapon. He goes back in July.