1 March 2008
PTSD rare among British peacekeepers
The incidence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is less common amongst British peacekeeping personnel than other nations’ military peacekeepers, says a study in the current issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Researchers from the King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Kings College, London, found that neither gender, age or deployment status (who soldiers deployed with) accounted for a significant difference in PTSD rate. However, consistent with other published research findings, subjects who were married or an officer, reported less PTSD symptoms.
Overall, the questionnaire based study (which comprised 1245 participants), found that the prevalence rate of probable PTSD varied from between 3.6% to 5.4%. The researchers suggest that, “It is possible that international variation in the types of operations that are conducted during peacekeeping missions, due to both national attitudes towards military risk taking and differing political pressures, may affect PTSD rates.”
The authors add that other factors, such as the way in which a soldier suffering distress is treated, might also be important. “Military personnel from some countries may be more likely to seek counselling or psychotherapy support for such symptoms. The accepted practice within the UK is that, in the first month at least, these interventions are not likely to be helpful and that it is better to rely on the natural resolution of symptoms. For most, this comes with time and with talking to non-professional friends, colleagues and family.” says Dr Neil Greenberg.
Greenberg suggests that another important contributing factor is that “compared with other troops around the world, the UK Armed Forces rate their leaders highly. Previous studies have shown that the more effective troops perceive their leaders to be, the less likely they are to report PTSD symptoms.”
The authors conclude that, although “keeping the peace can have serious psychological consequences for a small proportion of the UK service personnel who deploy on such operations,” it attracts disproportionately high interest from the media and politicians. They believe this is because, “the mental health of UK military personnel engaged on the current peace support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is an important, if at times overstated, issue.”
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Getting a peace of the action: measures of post-traumatic stress in UK military peacekeepers [PDF 212k]
“Getting a peace of the action: measures of post-traumatic stress in UK military peacekeepers” is published in the current issue of the Journal of the Royal Medical Society.
JRSM is the flagship journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. It has full editorial independence of the RSM. It has been published continuously since 1809. Its Editor is Dr Kamran Abbasi.
The article is available free at www.jrsm.org.
