Mental Illness and the Army: Many Soldiers Prone to Suicidal Behavior before they Enlist

Three studies have come to the shocking conclusion that many army soldiers may already be predisposed to symptoms of mental illness before entering the Army. 

For two of the three studies, researchers found that data provided by the Army's Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS) survey, which interviewed close to 5,500 soldiers, focusing on mental illnesses such as clinical depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD and panic disorder, reported a high usage of both drugs and alcohol among soldiers.

"Some of the differences in disorder rates are truly remarkable," Ronald Kessler, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School and senior author of one of the studies, said in a Harvard news release, according to Philly. "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."

Study results also showed that a quarter of the active-duty, non-deployed soldiers had some kind of mental disorder, with .11 percent of the group suffering from one mental illness.

Lead study author Michael Schoenbaum of NIMH and colleagues examined the suicide and accident death rate for one of the studies in relation to basic socio-demographic and U.S. Army experience factors in the 975,057 regular army soldiers who served from Jan. 1, 2004 to Dec. 31, 2009.

Findings showed that suicide rates increased during this time period, even among those who had never deployed. It also showed that being deployed increased suicide risk for women more than it did for men. 

Lead study author for the second article Matthew Nock of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., surveyed 5,000 non-deployed soldiers and found that 14 percent had considered suicide at some point in their life, while 5.3 percent made a suicide plan and 2.4 had even attempted suicide.

Statistics showed that soldiers who had attempted suicide were typically lower-ranking, enlisted, female and had been previously deployed.

Lead study author Ronald C. Kessler of Harvard Medical School for the third article, compared the rates of common mental disorders along with a set of non-deployed soldiers and a group of same-age civilians.

Among them, he found that the most common health issues for soldiers were attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and intermittent explosive disorder, with close to 85 percent having a self-identified mental disorder before joining the army.

"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," Robert Ursano, chair of the department of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and co-principal investigator of the Army STARRS survey.

More information regarding the findings of the three studies can be found via the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry.