Posted on 03/04/2014 1:20:57 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. soldiers had a common mental illness, such as depression, panic disorder or ADHD, before enlisting in the Army, according to a new study that raises questions about the military's assessment and screening of recruits.
More than 8% of soldiers had thought about killing themselves and 1.1% had a past suicide attempt, researchers found from confidential surveys and interviews with 5,428 soldiers at Army installations across the country.
The findings, published online Monday in two papers in JAMA Psychiatry, point to a weakness in the recruiting process, experts said. Applicants are asked about their psychiatric histories, and those with certain disorders or past suicide attempts are generally barred from service.
"The question becomes, 'How did these guys get in the Army?'" said Ronald Kessler, a Harvard University sociologist who led one of the studies.
A third study looked at the increased suicide rate among soldiers from 2004 to 2009. The study, which tracked nearly 1 million soldiers, found that those who had been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq had an increased rate of suicide....
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
ADHD is one of the most over prescribed “illnesses” ever.
It has become and excuse to make boys behave like girls through drugs.
Considering what constitutes “mental illness” these days, I’m surprised the number isn’t higher.
Every time someone “feels” like their life isn’t perfect, our society has taught him or her to get “help”.
Suck it up, kids. Life’s hard. It’s harder if you’re stupid.
As someone who actually has ADD (without the H), and who enlisted in the Army, all I needed was a waiver to get in. I never had any thoughts of killing myself, despite getting deployed for Desert Storm. My unit had one guy go AWOL before deployment, and one of our NCOs freaked during an air raid warning and refused to wear her gas mask, but I did fine.
Just to add: frankly, I wouldn’t put ADHD/ADD in the “mental illness” category. Having the disorder doesn’t make you unstable, or incapable of determining reality, or any other debilitating mental state. Certainly there is (in my experience) no aspect of ADHD that makes suicide or self-harm more likely, and none of the more-established medications used in treating the condition enhance the likelihood of such thoughts.
This information will be used to strip them of their gun rights...
Couldn’t this same 1 in 5 be a description for the whole population? Is this a hit piece on the military?
That would account for the number of gay troops, I suppose.
Yeah. According to this regime believing that you were born the wrong gender or are sexually attracted to other men’s effluent tubes is not mental illness but being a Constitutionalist is.
Or how about members of Congress? That ought to be interesting.
80% of government employees have mental illness. Before and now.
When new guys would report aboard a submarine we used to have a betting pool whether they would make it the first year or crack and either fake an illness or go nuts.
There are people with problems in every field. High amounts of stress usually bring those problems into public view. The military can be very stressfuly.
You mean everything is not like a Tom Clancy novel?
When I was a young man I enjoyed reading Clancy. However my view of the military has matured greatly in the decades since. You gain a lot of perspective after you've been out a while.
How did it change?
I enjoy WEB Griffin as well, but his “hook” is that the main characters are almost always wealthy, which you and I know is rare in the military.
Gee, I bet that means that can’t own guns now.
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