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By Christen N. McCluney
Special to American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 2009 – The Army is collaborating with the National Institute of Mental Health to launch the largest study ever undertaken of suicide and mental health among military personnel.
“The bottom line is, we want to apply science in a way that it’s going to solve this problem to the benefit of soldiers,” Robert Heinssen, NIMH’s acting director of intervention research said during a Nov. 18 interview on the Pentagon Channel podcast, “Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military.”
The institute is partnering with an academic team led by the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences that includes researchers from Harvard University, Columbia University and the University of Michigan. The team aims to develop a research agenda and research projects that look at the causes of, and areas for intervention in, a variety of mental disorders.
The project is going to capitalize on the data the Army already collects on servicemembers including training experiences, deployments, exposure during deployment, as well as information about health problems and utilization of health services, Heinssen said.
The first part of the study will look at the records of soldiers who committed suicide between 2004 and 2009, compared to a control group of soldiers from the same period that did not commit suicide, but have other characteristics that would be important for purposes of comparison, he said.
“By doing this kind of case-controlled study where the individual suicides are the cases and the controls are drawn from the rest of the Army, we think that we’ll get some early leads on signals that may tell us something about potential risk and protective factors that will help us target the second part of the study, which will be a survey of soldiers who are currently serving in the active duty component,” he said.
The survey will be conducted with several thousand soldiers every month over three consecutive years, covering about 90,000 servicemembers, Heinssen said. The investigators also will survey 100,000 new recruits a year over a three-year period and continue to follow them over time, he said.
Continue reading Army Joins With Mental Health Institute to Study Suicides
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By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2009 – Sheri Hall could tell something was wrong with her husband, Army Maj. Jeff Hall, at the hangar during his welcome home ceremony. “His eyes were dead,” she said.
It should have been a joyous time. The major was returning from his second deployment to Iraq at the end of 2005. He had been with a military training team with the 3rd Infantry Division.
He went from Fort Stewart, Ga., to the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La.
But he was having problems. One boss told him he exhibited “visceral anger.”
“I do know I was trying to correct a lot of deficiencies physically,” he said. “I’ve had nightmares. I was distant from my family, and I had thoughts of killing myself.”
But he coped, letting the anger build up for two and a half years. “I went through 28 rotations at the JRTC, and I finally said, ‘I can’t do this any more,’” he said.
Hall expected “the hammer” from his boss, he said. Instead, his boss got him the help he needed. He was accepted for a three-week treatment program at the Deployment Health Clinical Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here.
As part of the treatment, doctors checked Hall out thoroughly. They discovered old injuries from his airborne days and a new back injury he incurred in Iraq charging through what he called “the only oak door in Baghdad.” They started a regimen to help him deal with the pain of these injuries, which, he said, “helped with everything else.”
The program had group therapy in the morning followed by one-on-one sessions with a therapist. He asked, and the other soldiers in the group agreed, for Sheri to be involved.
“It was kind of a cry of desperation on my part,” he said. “I was trying to hang on to my family, even though I thought I’d already lost them.”
Continue reading ‘Real Warrior’ Helps Others Get Help
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By Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2009 – The rate of soldier suicides continues to concern Army leadership, with 211 active-duty and reserve-component suicides confirmed this year, the Army’s No. 2 officer told Pentagon reporters today.
“Simply stated, it is not a single problem with a defined set of symptoms or markers,” said Army Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff. “There are no easy answers or solutions. We still haven’t found any statistically significant causal linkage that would allow us to effectively predict human behavior.”
As of yesterday, 140 active-duty soldiers and 71 reserve-component troops had taken their own lives this year. The Army reported 140 active-duty suicides for all of 2008, a record high since 1980, when the Army first began tracking suicide statistics.
Although 2009 likely will be another record high for suicides in the Army, Chiarelli said, a variety of actions and studies have made progress. The general noted the recently launched Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, the Suicide Prevention Task Force and the Army’s five-year research partnership with the National Institute of Mental Health. But leadership intervention is the biggest factor in prevention, he said.
Almost one-third of the Army’s suicides this year occurred in January and February. The trend for most months since then has been significantly lower because of the Army’s initiatives to raise awareness, identify undiagnosed mental illnesses and remove the stigma of psychological issues, Chiarelli said.
Continue reading Army Leaders Struggle With Soldier Suicide Rate
By Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8, 2009 – The Army is making progress in its efforts to prevent suicides despite the increasing number of reports, an Army spokeswoman said in an interview with American Forces Press Service today.
So far this year, 117 suicides have been reported among active-duty soldiers, 14 more than what was reported through September in 2008. Of those, 81 are confirmed suicides and 36 are still under investigation, according to a statement released today by the Army.
Also, 35 reserve-component soldier suicides were reported with 25 pending investigation, the report said.
For the month of September, the Army reported one confirmed suicide and six under investigation on the active-duty side with another seven among the reserve force.
The Army’s 2008 suicide report tallied 143 for the year, which was an all-time high since the department began recording suicide statistics in 1980. The 2008 statistics also reflected an increase for the fourth consecutive year.
Suicides rates this year are on pace to pass the 2008 numbers, but Army officials aren’t considering that a failure. They’re basing their progress on the intervention and prevention stories they’re hearing from the field, the spokeswoman said.
Continue reading Army Continues Focus on Suicide Prevention
Two separate events going on in the near future here in Wisconsin are designed to support our Troops and their Families.
1. Military Families Connect (MFC) of the Family Resource Center of Sheboygan County (FRC) would like to invite everyone with a loved one in the Armed Forces (Reserve, Guard and Active Duty) and our [...]
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 668-09
August 31, 2009
The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs announced today the names of 14 members who will serve on the Department of Defense Task Force on the Prevention of Suicide by Members of the Armed Forces.
The congressionally directed task force will address trends and causal factors, methods to update prevention and education programs, suicide assessment by occupation, suicide incident investigations, and protective measures for confidential information derived from investigations for the department.
Continue reading DoD Establishes Suicide Prevention Task Force
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