A new collaborative effort between King’s College London, Imperial College London, and the UK Ministry of Defense have found that members of the British Armed Forces are more likely to suffer from poor mental health if physically injured during deployment than their counterparts.
The study, published in Lancet Psychiatry, looked into the mental health of military soldiers involved in combat casualties during deployment to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2014.
Over 1,100 male veterans from the ADVANCE study were included.
“This analysis used baseline data from the ADVANCE cohort study, in which injured individuals were recruited from a sample of UK armed forces personnel who were deployed to Afghanistan and had physical combat injuries, according to records provided by the UK Ministry of Defence,” the study states.
“Serious physical combat injuries were associated with poor mental health outcomes,” the study also states. “The rates of PTSD, depression, anxiety and mental health-associated multimorbidity were greater in the injured group than the uninjured group.”
