Heavy combat puts service members at high suicide, PTSD risk

Utah study: Heavy combat puts service members at high suicide, PTSD risk
Military Research shows sending a small, all-volunteer military into combat repeatedly has ‘enormous implications,’ U. dean says.
By Kristen Moulton
The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published 1 hour ago • Updated 1 minute ago

The more severe combat a warrior experiences, the more likely he or she is to later attempt suicide, new research at the University of Utah’s National Center for Veterans Studies shows.

It might seem like common sense, says David Rudd, the center’s scientific director and the dean of social and behavioral sciences, but it had never before been empirically validated, he says.

"This has enormous implications," says Rudd, who will discuss his research with the Congressional Veterans Caucus in Washington on Tuesday and at the American Psychological Association conference in August.

It shows there are ramifications when a nation sends a small, all-volunteer military into combat over and over and over again, he says.

"The severity of your psychiatric injury, the severity of your symptoms is clearly, undeniably tied to the severity of your combat exposure."

Moreover, it puts to rest the notion that warriors become more resilient, more comfortable the longer they are in combat. That’s a bromide sometimes used by those who dismiss combat as a cause because, after all, roughly half of suicides occur among military members who never leave the United States.

"It makes it hard to argue the case anymore that, ‘Hey, people who haven’t deployed are trying to kill themselves," says Rudd. "Yes, they are, but … it’s a separate issue. What this paper helps articulate is there are two different populations of people."

For those in his study who saw heavy combat, the findings are stark: 93 percent qualified for a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and nearly 70 percent had attempted suicide.
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