WVSJ Network: Suicide Prevention

Showing posts with label Suicide Prevention. Show all posts

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Wyo. National Guard Gets Stress Training (Combating Suicides)

By JAMES CHILTON

Wyoming Tribune Eagle

Published: September 2, 2012

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The Wyoming Army National Guard is arming its troops with a new weapon: a skills set to cope with the stresses of military life.

According to media reports, suicides in the Army have outnumbered combat deaths this year. That statistic serves as a stirring reminder of the importance of not only post-traumatic support but of proper mental and emotional conditioning, said Lt. Col. Samuel E. House of the Wyoming Guard.

"Military suicides have long been an issue within the military," House said. "The idea behind resilience training is to minimize that - as well as address other issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Army has offered resilience training, formerly called "battle-mind training" for several years. But, House said, it was only recently that the Army began to mandate that specific numbers of troops go through it.

Those troops, he said, can then use the lessons they've learned to help other soldiers cope with the day-to-day stresses of military life, such as the disconnect that can sometimes occur between military and civilian life.

"It's designed to look at the cultural aspect of it, not just the combat piece of it," House said. "There are just as many suicides among those who have deployed versus those who have not deployed. Marital problems, it's the same thing."

It's not uncommon for soldiers to assume a pessimistic disposition, whether it's due to the violence they witness overseas or whether they're coping with being separated from family and loved ones, House tells the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

Others can cope with military life but may have a hard time readjusting to civilian life, where responsibilities and expectations may be different than previously.

"Individuals who have done their four years or eight years or 20 years, it's interesting to see: Some people get out and go off and are very successful, other individuals, it's all they know," he said. "Particularly within the National Guard, before you deploy you have those (civilian and familial) responsibilities. Then you deploy and for the first two or three months, you feel like you need to be a part of the things at home."

While many soldiers are eventually able to accept their new roles, House said once they do return, they have to adjust to family life all over again.

At the same time, a soldier's spouse may have settled into his or her own new routine, which they then have to alter once the soldier returns home.

For that reason, one of the big focuses of the resilience training is getting soldiers to consider more than just the worst-case scenario.

All too often, House said, some soldiers may assume they're being cheated on or left behind.

Friday, August 10, 2012

New Study: U.S. Military Suicide Rate Now Likely Double or Triple Civil War’s

Can medical data from the U.S. Civil War help us better understand military suicides?

Your recent Time cover story in the July 23 issue detailed the tragic facts that suicide rates among active-duty U.S. military personnel rose dramatically over the past decade. Military suicide rates doubled between 2001 and 2006, while remaining flat in the general population, with more military fatalities attributed to suicide than to actual combat in Afghanistan during that period.

To make matters worse, we do not understand why. Stressors related to military training, overseas deployment, transition back to civilian life, and combat are widely believed to be major driving factors. However, 31% of soldiers who committed suicide had never been deployed to a war zone. Furthermore, suicide rates in British military forces have also increased recently, though to a lesser degree, and do not exceed the rate of the general population.

Is there a lack of historical context?

Compounding our inability to understand this current phenomenon is the lack of adequate historical data to provide context on whether high suicide rates were typical of prior wars. Review of archival records from past wars might help shed some light on the current military suicide epidemic.

In a recent study (Frueh & Smith, 2012) we reviewed historical medical records on suicide deaths among Union forces during the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865), a brutal war that many consider the first modern one, and for the year immediately after the war to estimate the suicide rate among its Union combatants. We also reviewed these same historical records for data on rates of alcohol abuse and other probable psychiatric illnesses.

White active-duty Union military personnel suicide rates ranged from 8.74 – 14.54 per 100,000 during the Civil War, and surged to 30.4 the year after the war. For black Union troops, rates ranged from 17.7 in the first year of their entry into the war (1863), to 0 in their second year, and 1.8 in the year after the war.

For comparison, the current rate of U.S. military suicides is just over 20 per 100,000 troops. To further put these figures into current context, there were more military suicides in 2010 (total suicides = 295), than during the entire four years of the Civil War, for which we found 278 documented Union suicides, and forces were of comparable size.

Thus, current suicide rates in the U.S. military are probably two to three times higher than those documented during the Civil War. Rates for other available psychological domains, including chronic alcoholism, “nostalgia,” and insanity, were extremely low (< 1.0%) by modern day standards during the Civil War.

Of course, we should interpret data from the U.S. Civil War cautiously, not simply because of its age, but because medicine and society in the 1860s were psychologically naïve. There was almost no awareness or understanding of mental illness then. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), now understood to be a common post-combat reaction did not exist in the medical literature at the time. Moreover, it is possible (but by no means certain) that the stigma of suicide and psychological problems may have biased against reporting.

What about combat intensity?

As noted by preeminent Harvard psychologist, Richard J. McNally (2012), these Civil War findings occurred within the context of extremely intense combat operations. In reviewing historical data on rates of killed in action, he notes that the death rate for Union forces during the Civil War was 48 times higher than for modern U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And yet, emotional problems and disability (from many different causes) has risen dramatically among U.S. military personnel and veterans, even since the Vietnam war.

READ MORE: http://ti.me/N07LOy

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Army Conducts Largest Mental Health Study

12th Public Affairs Detachment
Story by Sgt. Joshua Holt

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait – The Army Study To Assess Risk and Resilience in Service members research team is currently conducting a study to better understand the risks and factors associated with mental health, stress and suicide.

The Army STARRS research study is a partnership between The National Institute of Mental Health and the U.S. Army to identify the factors that may pose risks to soldiers’ emotional well-being and overall mental health.

“It’s the largest study of mental health risk and resilience that the military has ever conducted,” said Dr. Kevin Quinn, medical psychologist, NIMH program officer, Army STARRS. “We want to understand what might put a soldier at risk or what might make a soldier resilient to things that can increase or decrease the potential for suicide.”

“What we need to do, and what the study is designed to do is to contact a lot of soldiers,” said Quinn. “We’re on track with all the studies to have interviewed or surveyed 100,000 soldiers.”

The team assembled by NIMH includes participants from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, University of California, San Diego, University of Michigan, Harvard Medical School, NIMH and Army staff members.

The research will help the Army understand risks and factors of suicide, said Quinn. The rate of suicide has risen over the past five to seven years, but it is still an exceedingly rare event.

The study is designed to provide basic data to help aid other organizations studying prevention and risks associated with suicide, Quinn said.

Researchers look at the participant’s entire life, not just their military career.

“The basic component that’s involved in the majority of all the studies is the survey,” said Quinn. “We might look at the kinds of experiences that a soldier may have in the past before they ever entered the Army.”

The study will examine several different factors of the soldier’s life including: stress, deployments, exposures to trauma, family and personal history and demographics.

The survey can be taken in two different formats: a paper-and-pencil version and a computerized version. The method of testing would be determined by the research staff based on the location of the personnel being surveyed and the materials and equipment available.

Read more: http://www.dvidshub.net/news/92706/army-conducts-largest-mental-health-study#ixzz22tVUsVQx

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Help for Veterans and Their Families: National Institute of Mental Health’s “Outreach Partnership Program”

The National Institute of Mental Health’s “Outreach Partnership Program” has made information available to veterans and their families who have concerns about depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other behavioral health problems. The information in this article comes from that resource.

Depression interferes with daily life, and even though each person may experience depression in a unique way, there are some signs and symptoms that one should be aware of, including:

Persistent sad, anxious, or empty feelings
Feelings of hopelessness or pessimism
Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness
Irritability and restlessness
Loss of interest in activities or hobbies that one once found enjoyable/pleasant/fulfilling
Fatigue or decreased energy
Difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions
Sleep disturbance of one kind or another (like insomnia, too much sleep, or early morning wakening)
Eating problems: eating too much or a loss of ones appetite
Thoughts of suicide, or suicide attempts
Aches, pains, headaches, cramps or digestive problems that do not respond to medical treatment

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is not uncommon among returning veterans. When the following signs and symptoms last longer than a few weeks, one may be experiencing PTSD: