Research Paper Title

A review of United Kingdom Armed Forces’ approaches to prevent post-deployment mental health problems.

Abstract

There is now an abundance of research which has demonstrated that military personnel who deploy on operations are at increased risk of suffering a variety of mental health difficulties in the immediate and long-term post-deployment period. One consequence of these research findings has been the development of a variety of programmes which attempt to mitigate the increased psychological risk and to assist personnel who are returning from a deployment to make a smooth transition home.

Using a three-tiered prevention model, this article reviews some of the key post-deployment issues facing the UK Armed Forces and highlights the recent interventions which have been put in place to promote successful adjustment in the early post-deployment period. The paper is based upon research identified through a thorough literature search for studies which focused on this area and included a recognised measure of mental health as an outcome.

The paper focuses on three main areas;

1. Psychological decompression;
2. Psycho-education; and
3. Screening.

The current philosophical approaches to post-deployment mental health problems of some of the UK ’s coalition partners are also discussed.

You can read the paper here: A Review of UKAF Approaches to Prevent Post-Deployment Mental Health Problems (Fertout et al., 2011).

Reference

Fertout, M., Jones, N., Greenberg, N., Mulligan, K., Knight, T. & Wessely, S. (2011) A review of United Kingdom Armed Forces’ approaches to prevent post-deployment mental health problems. International Review of Psychiatry. 23, pp.135–143.