More PTSD Among National Guard Members

A recent study shows that National Guard members are more likely to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or depression after combat than are regular members of the active military. Even one year after deployment, National Guard members suffered rates of PTSD as much as three times higher. They also showed greater increase in alcohol abuse and incidents of aggressive behavior than members of the regular active military.

Reporting in the Archives of General Psychiatry, researches at Walter Reed Army Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland followed 18,305 soldiers for 12 months after deployment. The soldiers, who all had combat experience in Iraq or Afghanistan, were from four regular military infantry brigades, and two National Guard infantry brigades. They were measured 3 months after deployment and 12 months after deployment by a team of researchers led by Jeffrey Thomas.

Many of the soldiers who developed PTSD did so after the 3-month mark, but increases and total incidence were much greater for the National Guard Members. Using the DSM-IV measure of PTSD with serious functional impairment, members of the regular military with PTSD  increased between the three-month and 12-month periods, from 7.7 percent to 8.4 percent.

PTSD among members of the National Guard increased from 6.7 percent to 12.4 percent over the same period. That is an increase of 5.7 percent, compared to 1.2 percent for soldiers in the regular military, an increase almost five times as great.

Using a less restrictive measure of PTSD showed that 30.5 percent, or almost one in three, of the National Guard soldiers suffered from the disorder 12 months after deployment.

Soldiers in the active military had greater rates of depression three months after deployment. – 16 percent were depressed compared to 11.5 percent of the National Guards members.

Using the more strict measure of functional impairment, rates of depression among regular members of the active military increased slightly from 8.3 percent at three months, to 8.5 percent 12 months after deployment. Among National Guard soldiers, it increased from 5 percent to 7.3 percent. Despite the greater increase, members of the National Guard were still less likely to be depressed after combat duty.

Researchers theorized that the discrepancy in rates of PTSD was due to the active military soldiers better access to ongoing healthcare in the army while National Guards members who returned to their communities had less access to healthcare.

By Joni Holderman, [email protected], contributing reporter for Mental Health News.