A new study funded by the U.S Department of Defense suggests that the increasing number of U.S military suicides in recent years is not because of combat experience or extended deployments but of pre-existing mental health problems among soldiers.
The study included over 150,000 military personnel in the past and in the future from all service headquarters.
The researchers studied the data of 83 soldiers who ended their lives in between 2001 to 2008. Their analysis revealed that there were similar aspects which may explain the heightened suicidal risks in male. These are depression, manic-depressive disorder, and excessive alcohol drinking
On the other hand, they could find no relationship between combat experience, extended deployments or frequency of deployments and increased suicide risk.
The balloon in the rate of suicides in the military “may largely be a product of an increased prevalence of mental disorders in this population,” said Cynthia LeardMann of the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, California to CNN.
The U.S military has observed an increase on suicide cases since 2005 that match with the deployment of soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the very reason is still unknown.
In 2008, 268 soldiers killed themselves which then increased to 301 suicides in 2011. According to Pentagon’s latest report about the issue, 64 percent of those who attempted suicide display a behavioral health disorder.
The new research led by Dr. Chares Engel of the Uniformed Services University of Health Science in Bethesda, Maryland offers hope for lessening military suicide rate.
Engel wrote in his report, "These findings offer some potentially reassuring ways forward: the major modifiable mental health antecedents of military suicide - mood disorders and alcohol misuse - are mental disorders for which effective treatments exist.”
Their findings will be published in the next edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
