Posted on 07/01/2004 5:58:38 PM PDT by neverdem
About one in six soldiers returning from the war in Iraq shows signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or other emotional difficulties, researchers are reporting today.
Lower levels of psychiatric problems were found among troops who served in Afghanistan.
The study, published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, is the first to examine the mental health of troops returning from Iraq.
The researchers surveyed more than 6,000 soldiers in the months before and after service in Iraq or Afghanistan. Almost 17 percent of those who fought in Iraq reported symptoms of major depression, severe anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, compared with about 11 percent of the troops who served in Afghanistan.
The rates were slightly higher than those found among soldiers in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and lower than the rates in Vietnam veterans. But mental health studies of soldiers in those earlier conflicts were carried out years — in the case of Vietnam, decades — after the troops returned home. The new study examined soldiers before deployment and within three to four months after they returned.
"In the Vietnam era, post-traumatic stress disorder hadn't even been recognized as a disorder," said Dr. Charles W. Hoge, lead author of the study and chief of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. "It wasn't until 10 or 15 years later that many of the experiences the soldiers were having were recognized as P.T.S.D. Because of those lessons, we're now trying to take a more proactive approach to mental health."
He and other experts said that every war imposed unique pressures. Soldiers in Iraq have more contact with the enemy and more exposure to terrorist attacks than did troops in the earlier Iraq war.
National Guardsmen and Reserve troops are playing a larger role. At the same time, soldiers in Iraq have more public support than did the veterans returning from Vietnam.
The finding that rates of psychiatric problems among the soldiers returning from Iraq were higher in the new study than those among troops who were in Afghanistan reflects their greater exposure to combat, the researchers said. More than 90 percent of the Iraq troops reported having been shot at, while among those returning from Afghanistan, 66 percent said they had been attacked.
In each group, those who had the largest number of symptoms were also the ones least likely to seek help, the study found. More than half the soldiers who met the criteria for a psychiatric disorder reported that they had not sought help out of fear that they would be stigmatized or their careers would be harmed.
Whether the percentage of troops experiencing post-traumatic stress will change over time is unclear, but most experts say that the figures are likely to increase.
Dr. Robert Rosenheck, a professor of psychiatry and public health at Yale and director of the Department of Veterans Affairs Northeast Program Evaluation Center, said it was possible that some soldiers were experiencing symptoms but had not yet recognized them.
In the late 1990's, a long-term study of veterans of the Persian Gulf war found that the prevalence of post-traumatic symptoms more than doubled between an initial survey and a second one two years later. Based on those findings, and the continued fighting in Iraq, the percentage of returning soldiers with post-traumatic symptoms could still go up, said Dr. Matthew J. Friedman, director of the Department of Veterans Affairs at the National Center for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
"We know from research on soldiers deployed to Somalia in the early 90's that as the nature of the mission changed from peacekeeping to the capture of warlords, the prevalence of P.T.S.D. went up," he said. "The current study was conducted back when the war was one of liberation."
Another variable is the increasing numbers of National Guard and Army Reserves troops that are being sent overseas. Because they receive relatively little warning before deployment and are often less prepared for combat than soldiers in regular units, Dr. Friedman said, Guard and Reserves troops are more prone to post-traumatic stress.
"This study was only about those who were exposed to things that, in essence, were part of their jobs," he said. "There is a major concern about how Guard and Reserve troops are going to fare, particularly now that their tours are being extended."
BTW, I'm pretty sure that units from the reserves undergo 90 days of active duty training prior to deploying overseas.
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Same smear the Left smeared VN Vets with....
About one in six street punks suffer stress related disorder. Naturally they will recieve better care and compensation than our GI's and nore sympathy.
So what else is new?
My son is doing great after a 13 month deployment, and 11 in the Sunni triangle.
He was well prepared, and well cared for after coming home.
I see this as more anti-Bush, anti-military spin.......
Mental health warning on US soldiers
My initial post on the topic:
This is nothing new. When I was a kid, there was a guy in my neighborhood who had been hiccuping about once a second continuously since World War II, over twenty years at the time.
I never talked to him, but you could hear him down the block when he went outside, which wasn't often. Over a period of years, every time I saw him, he was hiccuping, and it was rather loud, too.
I don't know if it's true, but other kids in the neighborhood said he started hiccuping when he fell onto the rotted, putrid body of a German soldier in a trench during the war. Whatever it was that started him hiccuping, it must have been pretty bad.
War is hell.
If you are inclined to reply to this post, you may want to see some of my other posts on that thread, starting with this one.
I have a son that spent 13 months over there with most of the time at BIAP. He is going back in Jan. and is OK with it.
He's considering training for Special Ops.
God bless your son, mom. And God be with YOU!
So what!!! 1 in 6 people off any street in any city suffer stress disorder, if not even higher.
I have to agree...Im sure there are some who are suffering from PTSD...but, for the most part, I think the majority of returning troops are fine.....Mike and his unit lost 3 crewmembers in the chopper that was shot down, they were mortared almost daily,....I have seen no signs of any stress related problems from him or his troops..
I've seen some damn good people ruined by PTSD. If you want to bad mouth them or ignore the truth about what combat stress does to people, then you may want to take a look at why you would do that.
If you support our troops, don't try sweeping their problems under the rug. They need our help not only while they are deployed, but even more after they get back and try to live their lives.
I recommend you try reading this thread from start to finish for a some further insights.
I have a brother in law who suffered deeply from PTSD after Viet Nam. I know what it's about, and am sweeping nothing under the rug here....
And if there is any pontificating going on, it's being done by you.
(btw.......I'm not all that interested in your insights if you trust the NY Times to tell the truth about anything....)
I don't apologize for sneering at the reporting by the NY Slimes. Every rational person in America knows the Slimes doesn't give a damn about the stress suffered by our troops.
It's the GD Times we are bad mouthing. We bad mouth them because they bad mouthing our troops and our President.
Osama Bin Laden cares more about our troops than the NY Times.
2) You evidence a lack of understanding about the subject. I recommend further research. This thread has some good posts from people who know what they're talking about. Check into it.
3) I happen to be one of the "1 in 6", but from service prior to this war. Fifteen years after I did my time, I still wake up screaming some nights, and I didn't go through a tenth of what most Iraq vest have gone through. If you want to give me some grief about it or try to sweep me under the rug, come on out and say it. If not, then please stop implying it in your posts.
All in all, I'm doing fine -- now that I have finally figured out what the problem is and did something about it. But not before it cost me very, very dearly in my life.
Please don't take the tone of my post as an attack, I am not mad and not out to label or insult you. Understand, however, that those of us with "issues" related to our service face apathy, stigma and ridicule, and it just becomes wearying after a while. I don't see malice in your posts, just misunderstanding. Please don't think there is any malice in mine, just frustration borne of years of torment.
Minimalizing or dissembling about the real mental health issues surrounding military service only makes them worse. If you really support our troops, please don't let them down when they need you most.
"I see this as more anti-Bush, anti-military spin......."
Please explain how I misinterpreted that.
Who is minimalizing this, certainly, not I.....I just said I have not seen any signs yet.....
"About one in six street punks suffer stress related disorder. Naturally they will recieve better care and compensation than our GI's and nore sympathy."
So what else is new?
There is nothing in the article about "street punks". The article is about our soldiers.
Why do you think this is bad-mouthing our troops?
Please explain your what you're trying to say.
Supported by the Military Operational Medicine Research Program, U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, Ft. Detrick, Md.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, the U.S. government, or any of the institutions with which the authors are affiliated. We are indebted to the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research Land Combat Study Team: Lolita Burrell, Ph.D., Scott Killgore, Ph.D., Melba Stetz, Ph.D., Paul Bliese, Ph.D., Oscar Cabrera, Ph.D., Anthony Cox, M.S.W., Timothy Allison-Aipa, Ph.D., Karen Eaton, M.S., Graeme Bicknell, M.S.W., Alexander Vo, Ph.D., and Charles Milliken, M.D., for survey-instrument design and data collection; to Spencer Campbell, Ph.D., for coordination of data collection and scientific advice; to David Couch for supervising the data-collection teams, database management, scanning, and quality control; to Wanda Cook for design and production of surveys; to Allison Whitt for survey-production and data-collection support; to Lloyd Shanklin, Joshua Fejeran, Vilna Williams, and Crystal Ross for data-collection, quality-assurance, scanning, and field support; to Jennifer Auchterlonie for assistance with Defense Medical Surveillance System analyses; to Akeiya Briscoe-Cureton for travel and administrative support; to the leadership of the units that were studied and to our medical and mental health professional colleagues at Ft. Bragg, Ft. Stewart, Camp Lejeune, and Camp Pendleton; to the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research Office of Research Management; to David Orman, M.D., psychiatry consultant to the Army Surgeon General, Gregory Belenky, M.D., and Charles C. Engel, M.D., for advice and review of the study; and, most important, to the soldiers and Marines who participated in the study for their service.
Source Information
From the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, Silver Spring, Md. (C.W.H., C.A.C., S.C.M., D.M., D.I.C.); and First Naval Construction Division, Norfolk, Va. (R.L.K.).
Address reprint requests to Dr. Hoge at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 503 Robert Grant Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910, or at charles.hoge@na.amedd.army.mil.
Here's a list of the authors of the NEJM article:
Charles W. Hoge, M.D., Carl A. Castro, Ph.D., Stephen C. Messer, Ph.D., Dennis McGurk, Ph.D., Dave I. Cotting, Ph.D., and Robert L. Koffman, M.D., M.P.H.
The article was prepared with the assistance of the government by people who worked for the government. All those initials in the paragraph right after it says Source "Information" at the end of the paragraph, correlate exactly with the names of the authors of the NEJM article.
Fair enough, but I fail to see what relevance that has to the facts of the article, since plenty of us do see the signs.
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