Mental health suffers with multiple tours

WASHINGTON – More than a quarter of higher-ranking enlisted soldiers showed signs of having mental health problems after being sent to war zones for the third or fourth time, a sharp increase over those on their first or second deployments, according to a military study issued Thursday.

The findings, contained in a new Army report on the behavioral health of soldiers in Iraq, are the first to quantify the stress of repeated deployments. The data are likely to increase calls by senior Army leaders to cut down the length of combat tours and increase the length of time soldiers have in between deployments.

Although the Army has been measuring the mental health of troops in Iraq since the beginning of the war, the new study is the first to examine soldiers on their third or fourth tours of duty.

The report showed that 27.2 percent of non-commissioned officers – the sergeants responsible for leading troops in combat – reported mental health problems during their third or fourth tours. That was up from 18.5 percent for non-commissioned officers on their second tour and only 11.9 percent of those on their first tour. Mental health problems include signs of depression, anxiety and stress disorders.

The report showed a similar sharp decline in morale for enlisted officers on their third and fourth tours – with only 15.6 percent saying they had “very high morale,” down from 27.1 percent for officers on their first deployment – as well as significant increase in problems doing their assigned jobs.

“Soldiers are not resetting entirely before they get back into theater,” said Lt. Col. Paul Bliese, who headed the Army team that conducted the study.

Army health-care officials said it was difficult to assess whether rates of mental health problems on third or fourth tours were abnormally high, noting that they have little data from other conflicts or the civilian world to compare.

In addition, overall unit morale in Iraq was higher last year than in 2006, a change the officials attributed to declining violence in Iraq over the last 12 months. In Afghanistan, where violence has increased, unit morale declined slightly. Last year was the first time Army officials studied mental health of soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Iraq study, which reflects the results of anonymous surveys given to 2,295 soldiers in Iraq in October and November of last year, also was the first to look at the effect of 15-month combat tours on Army soldiers, which were implemented at the start of last year.

The longer tours had a mixed effect on soldiers’ mental health, the study found. In some areas, there were clear increases in problems because of the tour lengths.

Most strikingly, soldiers reporting they intended to get divorced or separated shot up over the course of the 15-month tours, with 30 percent of all junior enlistees saying they planned to break off personal relationships by the end of their deployment. Only 10 percent reported similar feelings at the start of their tours.