http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/health/studies-link-mental-issues-and-the-rigor-of-the-military.html 2014-10-24 04:43:59 Studies Link Mental Issues and the Rigor of the Military Though new soldiers report about the same rate of mental problems as their civilian peers, new research suggests those disorders can persist for longer amid the demands of service. === New recruits enter the Army with roughly the same rates of mental problems as their civilian peers, but those disorders can persist for longer amid the demands of service than in civilian life, new research suggests. These conclusions, drawn in two papers published Thursday by the journal The new research, which draws on surveys of more than 38,000 men and women in basic training, suggests that the higher rates of mental problems are rooted in the rigors of service, not in the loosening of enlistment standards. The surveys were anonymous. Enlistees “are not much different from civilians” in terms of The two papers are part of a large investigation into mental health in the Army that began in 2008, after the suicide rate among active-duty soldiers exceeded the suicide rate among young, healthy civilian adults for the first time. The annual soldier suicide rate more than doubled from 2004 to 2009, to more than 23 per 100,000. (It has fallen since then, toward 20 per 100,000, the rate among civilians in the same age group.) Over the past five years, the study team, a coalition of academic, government and military researchers, has begun to fill out a mental portrait of new soldiers that looks a lot like the civilian one. Some 38 percent of new soldiers reported having had at least About 14 percent of the recruits reported having had “We’re working to understand the transitions, from thinking to planning to making an attempt,” said Dr. Robert J. Ursano, director of the Center for Traumatic Stress at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and lead author of the paper on suicide. “Once you understand transitions, you can begin to think about interventions.” The findings from both papers suggest that early treatment of mental health symptoms could avert problems later on, Dr. Ursano said. The results also present the military with a familiar conundrum: How do you identify vulnerable people without driving them underground? “This is the dilemma you’re up against in this work,” Dr. Ursano said. “We had all kinds of protections in place to keep the answers anonymous.”