Mental health disorders are on the rise in the military, now accounting for more hospitalizations than any other ailment, according to a new Defense Department health report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Diagnoses of mental health disorders are up 40% over the past five years, from 2019 to 2023, according to\u00a0a Defense Health Agency report. It found that anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) doubled over the five-year period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2023, active-duty service members<\/a> experiencing a mental health disorder made up 54.8% of hospital bed stays, more than every other affliction combined.<\/p>\n From 2019 through 2023, 541,672 active-duty\u00a0<\/strong>service members across all branches were diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder<\/a>, according to the report. About 47% of those were diagnosed with more than one mental health disorder. In 2023, there were 1.3 million U.S. active duty troops.<\/p>\n The sobering report follows the New Year’s Day vehicle attack in New Orleans that killed 14 people, revealing that the suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was an Army veteran with multiple deployments. \u00a0<\/p>\n That same day in Las Vegas, Col. Matthew Livelsberger, an active member of the Army Green Berets, shot himself in the head in a Cybertruck full of explosives.\u00a0<\/p>\n PRESIDENT BIDEN AWARDS MEDAL OF HONOR TO SEVEN ARMY VETERANS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n “As service members continue to experience increased rates of mental health disorders after the COVID-19 pandemic, help-seeking behaviors to address psychological as well as emotional well-being should be prioritized to maintain force readiness,” the report read.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Pentagon could not immediately be reached for comment on what’s behind the uptick in diagnoses and whether U.S. forces are mentally prepared to go into combat if needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Female service members, those who are younger and those in the Army<\/a>, were most likely to be diagnosed.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Navy led all other branches in depressive disorders, bipolar disorders and personality disorders.<\/p>\n Active duty female service members were diagnosed with PTSD twice as often as their male counterparts.\u00a0<\/p>\n The medical data came from records accessed via the Defense Medical Surveillance System and Theater Medical Data Store. It analyzed ambulance encounters, hospitalization or outpatient visits to a psychiatric facility, and other factors to define a mental health diagnosis.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, military suicides ticked up again last year,\u00a0following a dark trend\u00a0the Pentagon<\/u><\/a> has struggled to combat.\u00a0<\/p>\n HERE’S HOW MANY US SERVICE MEMBERS ARE SPENDING THE HOLIDAYS AWAY FROM HOME DEPLOYED OVERSEAS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Overall, there were 523 reported suicides in 2023, the most recent data available, up from 493 in 2022. The number of active-duty troops who died by suicide increased to 363 from 331 the previous year, up 12%.\u00a0<\/p>\n Suicide is by far the biggest killer of service members, killing more than training accidents, illnesses, homicides or combat, according to the Defense Department (DOD)<\/u><\/a>. In addition to the sheer number, the rate of suicides per 100,000 also went up last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Suicide deaths by\u00a0active-duty service members<\/a> have been on the rise since 2011.<\/p>\n Another troubling sign from the data is how many suicide victims sought help: 67% had a primary care encounter in the 90 days before their death; 34% had been to an outpatient mental health center; 8% had been discharged from an in-patient mental health facility; and 18% were on psychotropic medication at the time of their death.\u00a0<\/p>\n Within a year prior to their death, 44% of military suicide victims reported intimate relationship problems, and 42% reported a behavioral health diagnosis.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mental health disorders are on the rise in the military, now accounting for more hospitalizations than any other ailment, according to a new Defense Department health report.\u00a0 Diagnoses of mental health disorders are up 40% over the past five years, from 2019 to 2023, according to\u00a0a Defense Health Agency report. It found that anxiety disorders … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}