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The mental health of military veterans in the UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Howard Burdett ,
Neil Greenberg ,
Nicola T. Fear  and
Norman Jones
Howard Burdett
Affiliation:
King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR), King's College London, UK, email howard.burdett@kcl.ac.uk
Neil Greenberg
Affiliation:
Psychological Medicine, King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR), King's College London, UK
Nicola T. Fear
Affiliation:
King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR), King's College London, UK
Norman Jones
Affiliation:
Academic Department for Defence Mental Health, King's College London, UK
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Abstract

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Risk factors for poor mental health among UK veterans include demonstrating symptoms while in service, being unmarried, holding lower rank, experiencing childhood adversity and having a combat role; however, deploy ment to a combat zone does not appear to be associated with mental health outcomes. While presentation of late-onset, post-service difficulties may explain some of the difference between veterans and those in service, delayed-onset post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) appears to be partly explained by prior subthreshold PTSD, as well as other mental health difficulties. In the longer term, veterans do not appear to suffer worse mental health than equivalent civilians. This overall lack of difference, despite increased mental health difficulties in those who have recently left, suggests that veterans are not at risk of worse mental health and/or that poor mental health is a cause, rather than a consequence, of leaving service.

Type
Thematic papers
Information
International Psychiatry , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , November 2014 , pp. 88 - 89
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 2014

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