The largest study of mental-health risk every conducted among the U.S. military has found that rates of mental disorders are much higher among military members than civilians.
The findings of the study were released in a series of three reports published in this week's edition of JAMA Psychiatry.
"Some of the differences in disorder rates are truly remarkable," Ronald Kessler, professor at Harvard Medical School and senior author of one of the studies, said. "The rate of major depression is five times as high among soldiers as civilians, intermittent explosive disorder six times as high, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) nearly 15 times as high."
In addition to those findings, the study found that nearly 25 percent of active-duty, non-deployed Army soldiers surveyed tested positive for some sort of mental disorder, and 11 percent within that group tested positive for more than one illness.
Much of the study's data was taken from the Army's STARRS (Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers) survey of nearly 5,500 soldiers. Both the U.S. Army and the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health collaborated for the study, which examined disorders including clinical depression, panic disorder, bipolar disorder and PTSD. The most common disorders in the survey were intermittent explosive disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The study's authors also noted a common use of alcohol.
According to the findings, soldiers tended to develop higher rates of mental disorders after enlistment in the Army.
One of the studies found that 14 percent of soldiers had suicidal thoughts, while 5.3 percent had planned a suicide and 2.4 percent had made one or more suicide attempts.
While the suicide death rate in the U.S. Army has historically been below the civilian rate, the Army rate began rising at the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. By 2008, it exceeded the civilian rate, according to Harvard Medical School.
"These results are a wake-up call highlighting the importance of outreach and intervention for new soldiers who enter the Army with pre-existing mental disorders," said Robert Ursano, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and co-principal investigator of Army STARRS.
The study's authors hope the data might be used to help with outreach programs for soldiers.
"These studies provide knowledge on suicide risk and potentially protective factors in a military population that can also help us better understand how to prevent suicide in the public at large," National Institute of Mental Health Director Dr. Thomas R. Insel said.
