Friday, May 6, 2011

Pre-deployment mental woes make combat stress more likely


Civilians who don the uniform and march into war carrying the psychological burden of previous trauma -- or of afflictions such as depression or anxiety disorder --  are far more likely than their mentally healthy comrades to suffer battle-related stress following deployment, new research has found.
study published this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry also found that women, African Americans and those with less education were slightly more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following their return from a war zone. Less surprisingly, sustaining a battle injury also boosted the odds, as did the length of time an individual spent in a wartime theater of operations.
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

No comments:

Post a Comment