PTSD and the Iraq War

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is increasingly common among members of the military services, especially those who have served in theaters of operation or war such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Ira Katz (2007), Deputy Chief of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, stated that at the end of the first half of fiscal year 2007, almost 720,000 military men and women separated from the armed forces after service in Iraq and Afghanistan and over 250,000 sought health care in Veterans Administration facilities, with approximately 45,000 individuals receiving care for post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is perhaps the most common mental disorder exhibited by returning American military personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan (Katz, 2007; Greiger, 2007). Greiger (2007) states that about 12-20 percent of all combat soldiers returning from Iraq have probable PTSD while 7-15 percent have probable depression. These data suggest that PTSD is a major post-military service health problem which requires greater attention than it is currently receiving.

A report on MSNBC.com (1 in 8 returning soldiers..., 2004) stated that PTSD tends to develop among military personnel after they have witnessed or experienced a traumatic event. Symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, feelings of detachment, irritability, trouble concentrating, and sleeplessness. This report indicated that PTSD has been a problem among military personnel since Vietnam and throughout the Persian Gulf War. It appear

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th care in the field coupled with a reluctance on the part of many soldiers to acknowledge psychological problems tends to exacerbate the symptoms of PTSD (Zoroya, 2007). Forbes, Haslam, Williams, and Creamer (2005) conducted a study of PTSD among combat veterans and found that it may best be conceptualized as one end of a continuum of human response to traumatic exposure. For many soldiers, PTSD is directly associated with living in a state of hyper-anxiety, constantly anticipating the possibility of an attack or an assault. Forbes et al. (2005) noted that among Australian soldiers who served in Iraq, anxiety and depression were common, particularly in light of a tendency toward longer tours of duty with limited leaves for rest and relaxation outside of the theater of war. Engelhard and Van Den Hout (2007) investigated the extent to which preexisting neuroticism confounds the relation between appraisals of the severity of major and minor stressors and PTSD symptoms among Dutch soldiers returning from Iraq. These researchers found that the existence of neuroticism prior to combat duty tended to be a predictor of later PTSD. However, also predictive of PTSD were major stressors such as going on patrols, disarming civili

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