The task force says "relatively few high-quality" mental health programs exist in the military now. According to a 67-page report, the health experts are calling for an immediate change.
The panel's report says a 40 percent vacancy rate in active duty psychologists in the Army and Navy, resources diverted from family counselors and a weak transition for veterans leaving the military is putting our nation's finest in a different kind of danger.
The American Psychological Association on Sunday released the findings and cited that three out of 10 soldiers met the criteria for having a "mental disorder."
However, the report says a much smaller number, less than half of those, actively sought help.
Researchers say it could be the stigma of having mental health problems; other times the help simply wasn't available.
The APA report says a rising number of military personnel and their families are reporting emotional problems resulting from deployment stress.
What makes it even harder for the deployed soldiers used heavily in Iraq are the special challenges in actually getting help to the National Guard and Reserve troops stationed there.
"Many service personnel and their family members are going without mental health care because of the limited availability of such care and the barriers to accessing care," a news release accompanying the study said.
The special task force, chaired by an active military psychologist and comprised of psychologists working for the military or Veterans Administration force, found no evidence of a "well-coordinated or well-disseminated approach to providing behavioral health care to service members and their families."
Specifically, the report cites families at being of special risk. USA today reports that it noted that 700,000 children have had a parent sent overseas since Sept. 11, 2001, and estimated that 2,733 children have lost a parent killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The AP quotes pediatric psychologist Jeanne Hoffman, a task force member and a civilian pediatric psychologist at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, as saying, "There are tremendous needs; the system is stressed by these needs."
Regarding the less than stellar ratings from their peers, the Defense Department's mental health experts say they haven't read the panel's report. Pentagon spokesperson Cynthia Smith said the military is proud of its mental health services record. The department even touted a new program launched this year that follows up on service members after they return home to their families.
In an e-mail to the AP Smith said, "For the past four years, DOD has been aggressively reaching out to support our military personnel before and after deployments. This is unprecedented."
The statement continued: "We have assessed the health, including the mental health, of more than 1 million service members before and after deployments. We have worked with their families and others to address mental health concerns associated with deployments and with war.
"Deployment can be a complex, and for some families, overwhelming process," stated Michelle D. Sherman, PhD, co-chair of the APA Task Force. "Deployment means extended separations and the uncertainty of having a loved one in a combat zone. The situation creates an environment in which the development of significant emotional problems for military personnel and their families is a real possibility."
In addition to the aforementioned problems the coalition cited as facing the military's mental health system are the following:
- The Pentagon failed to implement the best mental health treatment programs across the military.
- The military hasn't hired enough psychologists. The study notes a 22 percent decline in the number of uniformed clinical psychologists in the military and a 40 percent vacancy among licensed clinical psychologist positions in the Army and Navy.
- Not enough research has been done on the war's impact on military families.
The APA's report makes the following recommendations: - Establish centralized leadership of military mental health services to better coordinate the services on military bases and surrounding communities.- Educate military leadership about the importance of mental health care among service members and their families and about reducing stigma associated with seeking mental health services. - Undertake more research on mental health issues related to deployment to guide policies, program development and treatment plans for service members and their families.- Ensure that treatment is available to service members and their families throughout the deployment cycle with special focus on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI).- Increase recruitment efforts to hire more psychologists and to retain well-trained and experienced psychologists.- Provide special ongoing training in deployment stress for all psychologists in the military system - both military and civilian providers. - Allocate additional funding to ensure access to high-quality mental health care for service members and their families.
