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| Interventions to Enhance Psychological Resilience and Prevent Psychiatric Casualties |
Army Science and Technology Objective: IV.ME.2003.04
Problem
Over one third of enlisted soldiers fail to complete their first term of enlistment, most often due to mental, psychosocial, and behavioral problems. Over 7% of the entire force receives outpatient treatment for a mental disorder each year, with over one quarter of these military personnel leaving military service within six months (vs. 9% overall). These problems exist on a continuum that ranges from degraded performance, such as impaired adaptability and reduced cognitive function, to psychiatric casualties. Such problems can have a critical impact on the ability of soldiers and small units to respond effectively to mission demands.
Medical Research Solution
Examine existing health care data, evaluate the latest cognitive assessment technologies, and collect data during operational deployments to develop a knowledge base and interventions to sustain performance, and prevent behavioral dysfunction and psychiatric casualties. Major research goals are to identify psychological, psychiatric and physiological markers that predict soldier resilience and performance under acute and chronic stress; integrate biobehavioral predictors of acute and chronic stress with performance metrics; develop new strategies to prevent stress-related performance degradation; identify health and occupational factors to predict attrition among new recruits; and, validate an optimal screening tool for deployments, linking data to health care utilization and personnel records.
Products
Assessment and intervention tools to improve resiliency, warfighter health, and mission performance, including:
- valid methods to assess cognitive function in the field
- suicide surveillance system
- effective method for psychological health screening in deployed troops
- strategies, such as psychological debriefing following traumatic events, to reduce psychiatric illness in soldiers
- criteria for identifying vulnerable soldiers in training and operational environments.
Last Update: April 2, 2003