The War's Mounting Mental Toll
Fully one third of veterans who have returned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with mental health or psychosocial disorders, according to new data gathered from veterans' health records. The problems, which include post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and drug and alcohol abuse, appear to be particularly pronounced among the youngest veterans: Those ages 18 to 24 were three times more vulnerable than veterans over 40.
So far, the proportion of vets diagnosed with PTSD—13 percent—has not surpassed the 15 percent ultimately diagnosed in people who served in Vietnam. Researchers expect that it will, though they don't know if that increase will be because of the particularly stressful nature of the guerrilla-style warfare being practiced in Iraq and Afghanistan or because the troops are more aware of PTSD and more willing to seek treatment. By contrast, the number of people in the general population diagnosed with PTSD is 3.5 percent.
The research team was troubled to discover that the majority of vets receiving mental health diagnoses had more than one problem. "I wasn't expecting that," says Karen Seal, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California–San Francisco, and a staff physician at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, who led the study. "Patients with comorbid disorders are a lot harder to treat than someone with just PTSD. We need to acknowledge all the problems that could be going on with a patient."
The VA is justly praised for its development of evidence-based programs to treat PTSD, but access to services remains an ongoing issue. A 2006 study by the Government Accountability Office found that only 22 percent of returning service members who had been identified as being at risk of developing PTSD were referred for further evaluation.
And some veterans may put off getting help, to their detriment. "A lot of people aren't willing to acknowledge problems or take time out of their busy lives until they hit bottom," Seal says. "The disorder can become more chronic and more difficult to treat. Intervening early is really the key here."
The researchers scanned the records of 103,788 veterans who first used the VA medical system between Sept. 30, 2001, and Sept. 30, 2005. Almost 30 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have sought medical care through the VA, compared to 10 percent from the Vietnam era.
advertisement
