Why Some Soldiers Develop PTSD
After ten months of intermittent treatment for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), L/Sgt Dan Collins, a soldier who fought for Operation Panther’s Claw in Afghanistan, in 2009, was told that he has fully recovered and would be ready to go back to duty. But on New Year’s Eve in 2011, he put on his Army uniform, and drove to Preseli Mountains in Pembrokeshire, recorded a farewell video, and hanged himself. He was just 29 years old.
Suicide Rates of Soldiers and Veterans Outstripped Afghan Deaths
L/Sgt Collins is among the 21 serving soldiers who took their own lives last year, along with 29 veterans, according to the BBC Panorama. The figures indicate that there were more soldiers who died from suicide than those who fought and killed themselves whilst on duty. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said every suicide was a ‘tragedy’. 7 serving soldiers were confirmed to have committed suicide in 2012 whilst inquests are still pending for the other 14 deaths where suicide is suspected.
According to the MoD, 2.9% of serving soldiers developed PTSD, which is lower than the general population. Nevertheless, the number of soldiers with the said condition has more than doubled in the past three years, especially in those who served in Afghanistan. Some of the soldiers’ families claimed the men did not get enough support. The MoD said they were not prepared to talk about the individual cases but committed £7.4m to provide extensive mental health support for everyone who needs it.
The names of soldiers who killed themselves in Afghanistan are engraved on the wall at the National Memorial Arboretum but those who took their own lives after returning home are not mentioned, which broke the heart of the bereaved families even more.
This shocking news, once again, raises questions on the quality of mental health support provided to the men we look up to as ‘heroes’.
Why do some soldiers develop PTSD?
Not all soldiers or veterans develop PTSD. A growing body of research suggests that there are several key factors that make some of them vulnerable to such condition.
In a new study published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, researchers report that the pre-war vulnerability of soldiers is as important as combat-related trauma in determining whether a solder’s PTSD is likely to be long- lasting.
Researchers at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and the New York State Psychiatric Institute examined data from 260 male veterans from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study who were all diagnosed of post traumatic stress disorder. The study focused on the roles of the following factors – severity of combat exposure, pre-war vulnerabilities, and involvement in harming civilians or prisoners.
They found that among these factors, pre-war vulnerabilities such as childhood experiences of physical abuse or a pre-Vietnam psychiatric disorder other than PTSD had the strongest impact on the risk of PTSD. Age also seemed to play an important role. The researchers found that men who entered the war before the age of 25 were 7 times more likely to develop PTSD compared to older men. Furthermore, those who inflicted harm to civilians or prisoners were much more at risk of the condition.
Soldiers who scored high in these three predictors had 97% chance of developing PTSD. The researchers conclude that these findings have important implications for policies aimed at preventing cases of war-related PTSD.
Another research, conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), suggests that genes may also play a role in determining whether a soldier develops PTSD. For this study, researchers tracked 1,000 Israeli soldiers from 2008 to 2010 and measured their “threat bias” which referred to the time it took for a soldier to respond to threatening words like “death” than to more neutral words like “door”. Here they found a link between the ‘combat gene’ and PTSD among those who experienced high levels of combat and pre-existing levels of high threat vigilance. The researchers said that the combat gene may be an adaptation for high stress and high threat situations where extreme levels of vigilance allow people to feel more secured and aware of their surroundings. They also found that soldiers who had greater efficiency form of the serotonin transporter gene were more able to adapt to combat situations and were far less likely to suffer from PTSD.
Sources of this article:
UK soldier and veteran suicides ’outstrip Afghan deaths’
Why Some Soldiers Develop PTSD While Others Don’t
Gene Linked to PTSD Risk in Soldiers
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