Article Summarys

Article One: PTSD Symptom Increases in Iraq-Deployed Soldiers: Comparison

With Non-deployed Soldiers and Associations with Baseline Symptoms, Deployment Experiences, and post-deployment Stress. Gabrielle Furbay

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been identified as a significant public health consequence of war. PTSD cases among deployed Soldiers increased from 7.6% before deployment to 12.1% following deployment. The estimated prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among U.S. Iraq War veterans exceeds 12% among recently returned service members and 6% in soldiers assessed one year after return from Iraq. U.S. service members deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan have an estimated PTSD rate of 14%, with new onset cases exceeding 7% among combat-exposed personnel, and are consistent with mental health outcomes observed after previous wars. In a study accessing military personnel at regular intervals over time, over 43% of the deployed Iraq or Afghanistan soldiers who were combat exposed with baseline PTSD symptoms maintained those symptoms following deployment.

Article Two: Military-related PTSD: A Focus on the

Symptomatology and Treatment Approaches. Gregory G. Garske.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are producing a new generation of veterans at risk for the

chronic mental health problems that result, in part, from exposure to the stress, adversity,

and trauma of war-zone experiences. Military returnees are experiencing Post-Traumatic

Stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health problems in numbers not seen since the war in Vietnam. Combat exposure has been linked to an array of negative health consequences, most notably posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a chronic and disabling psychiatric disorder that may develop following exposure to a traumatic incident. Therefore, military personnel are among the most at-risk populations for exposure to traumatic events and

the development of PTSD. For thousands of years, dating back to Homer’s Iliad, authors have written of the horrors of war, both the physical and psychological consequences. For example, Homer noted behavioral changes in combatants in the Trojan Wars. The definition of these behavioral changes would most likely meet the current definition of PTSD.

Article Three: Dispositional Optimism Buffers Combat Veterans from the Negative Effects

of Warzone Stress on Mental Health Symptoms and Work Impairment. Jefferey L. Thomas, Thomas W. Britt, Heather Odele.

In U.S. Army studies, both combat exposure and the chronic demands of the deployed

environment have been found to be predictors of mental health symptoms among deployed

soldiers. Studies have demonstrated that service members deployed for combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan are at higher risk of developing mental health problems following their deployment compared with pre deployment. Mental health symptoms also tend to increase following the soldiers return home. They have also found that PTSD gets in the way of the soldiers motivation to do their work, and how well they do it.