Prevalence of mental health problems in veterans
Veterans are defined as those that have served in the Armed Forces for at least one day and have now left the military (Hughes, 2017). It is well documented by Iverson et al. (2007) that many veterans found serving in the Armed Forces to be a positive experience and the majority of veterans do not experience mental health difficulties after leaving the Armed Forces (Fear et al., 2010).
Numerous other studies have, however, shown there to be a high prevalence of mental health difficulties in veterans (Bunn & Nottingham, 2016). Between 9% and 19% of veterans returning from deployment report significant mental health problems (Hoge, Terhakopian, Castro, Messer & Engel, 2007). The ex-service community, including veterans and their dependents, is currently estimated to form just under 10% of the UK population (Hughes, 2017).
Psychological factors relating to veterans and impacting on intervention
It is important to offer specialist psychological intervention to veterans due to their often complex presentation of mental health difficulties which may be influenced by several factors. These include military life itself, operational service, …show more content…
In addition, the Armed Forces Covenant states there is a moral obligation that the nation owes to past and present personnel of the Armed Forces (Hughes, 2017). It is only recently, however, that specific NHS provision for veterans’ mental health services came about (Hughes, 2017). This followed a study conducted by Dent-Brown et al. (2007) reporting that veteran-orientated and specific services would be well received by veterans even if they were run by the NHS. A paper entitled “Fighting Fit” was then written directing regional mental health services to link up with the charity Combat Stress to provide specialist services to veterans (Murrison,