Wars Harming Mental Health

Wars Harming Mental Health Of Soldiers, Spouses

Problems Present
Long, Hidden Toll;
Help Often Avoided
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
April 30, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have caused heightened stress, depression and sleeplessness among some military personnel and their families, a new report says.


The survey by the American Psychiatric Association, set to be released Wednesday, found that 32% of military members believe their tours in the two war zones had "at least some negative impact" on their mental well-being. Among military spouses, 40% believed their mental health was hurt by their husband's or wife's service overseas.

Many members of the military community remain reluctant to request counseling, the report found. Almost 75% of the military personnel felt that seeking help would harm their careers, while 66% of the military spouses worried that looking for assistance for their own issues would harm their loved ones' chances of promotion.

"The old beliefs remain in place in the military, and there's a real fear that admitting to mental illness will mean being stigmatized," said Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz, president of the American Psychiatric Association. "The risk is that mental-health issues can go untreated, which has the potential to really hit families hard."

This is the first time the APA has commissioned such a survey, making it hard to judge changes over time in the mental health of military personnel. The survey of 183 military members and 164 spouses was conducted online by Harris Interactive. The report didn't give a margin of error.

The report adds to concerns that mental-health problems will be a long-term and largely hidden cost of current conflicts.

Because of advances in medicine, many military personnel are surviving physical injuries that would have been fatal a few years earlier. But the grinding nature of the counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there are no clear front lines and where civilian casualties are common, means that more veterans might suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression than in conflicts such as World War II.

• Signs of Damage: A report says wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have heightened stress, depression and sleeplessness among some military personnel and their spouses.
• Positive Reviews: About three-quarters of personnel and spouses said their overall mental health was excellent or good.
• Long-Term Cost: The practice of multiple deployments raises the risk of mental illness."The young men and young women today spend 365 days on the front lines, and I think that has the possibility of a serious toll on someone," Rep. Ike Skelton (D., Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters Tuesday.

A Rand Corp. study released this month said 20% of the roughly 1.6 million military personnel who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It found that half of the military personnel had friends who were seriously wounded or killed, while about 45% saw dead or wounded civilians.

"There's a cost in dollars, but most importantly there's a cost in lives if we don't work to prevent suicides, prevent drug and alcohol abuse, and prevent divorce and family problems," said Sen. Christopher Bond (R., Mo.), who is working on a bill designed to improve veterans' mental-health care.

Sen. Bond's bill, which he hopes to introduce within days, would let active-duty soldiers suffering from mental-health problems use the much larger network of Veterans Administration facilities and treatment centers. Active-duty soldiers can now seek care at facilities on military installations and at national facilities such Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Maryland.

The bill would also train veterans to offer psychological assistance to other returning service personnel.

The new APA survey suggests that those risks extend to military spouses. About three-quarters of the military personnel and spouses rated their overall mental health as excellent or good, but about a quarter said they suffered from regular bouts of sleeplessness, anxiety and depression.

About 40% of the military personnel and just more than half of the military spouses said they felt stressed at least twice a week, and similar numbers said their stress levels had increased more than they expected since they or their loved ones served in the war zones.

The APA's Dr. Robinowitz said the risks of serious mental-health problems increase the more times military personnel deploy to the war zones. The military is facing growing manpower strains because of the two long wars, and many soldiers and Marines have served two, three and in some cases four tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"If you suffer a trauma on one tour, and then go back and are retraumatized, you're more likely to have PTSD," she said. "The more you're exposed to trauma, the more you can exacerbate the PTSD."

Write to Yochi J. Dreazen at yochi.dreazen@wsj.com

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Many articles ignore the plight of how PTSD affects the spouses and children of war veterans, this is the best article I have read in a long time that deals with the entire effects of PTSD on the soldiers and their families. SALUTE to the WSJ for this one.

Sphere: Related Content