Post-Traumatic Stress Tied to Increased Suicide Risk

While this study is new, doing studies like this is not new at all. I'm still glad they did it but we've been hearing studies like this since the 70's. What good do these studies do if no one ever does anything with the data? The DOD and the VA dropped the ball when it came to Iraq and Afghanistan because they didn't look back to see what happened to Vietnam veterans. It's not as if they would have a hard time finding the research papers since the DOD and the VA did most of the studies after they were forced to by the DAV. Now this study comes out but one thing to keep in mind is that the troops end up going through traumatic event after event after event. This does not give them very good odds at all.
Post-Traumatic Stress Tied to Increased Suicide Risk
U.S. News & World Report - Washington,DC,USA
How young adults respond to early trauma seems to play a role, study finds
Posted March 2, 2009

MONDAY, March 2 (HealthDay News) -- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) increases the risk of suicide in young adults, says a U.S. study of 1,698 participants who were tracked for 15 years after they started first grade in Baltimore public schools.

Interviews were conducted with the participants when they were young adults (average age 21) to assess the incidence of traumatic events, suicide attempts and the development of PTSD. Of the group, 1,273 had experienced a traumatic event, and 100 of those exposed to trauma (8 percent) developed PTSD.
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Suicide had been attempted by 10 percent of those with PTSD, compared with 2 percent of the youths who experienced trauma but did not develop PTSD and 5 percent of those never exposed to a traumatic event.

The study was published in the March issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.
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