PTSD: Prevention Focused
Abstract
Prevention of combat-related PTSD is more important to the combat readiness of the military than the treatment of PTSD. Biological, psychological, and social pretrauma risk indicators and risk mechanisms can be identified to form policy decisions and to inform a PTSD prevention effort within the military to reduce future incidence of PTSD, reduce social and fiscal costs of PTSD, and preserve combat readiness. The small pool of soldiers in the current all-volunteer force virtually guarantee that any war fought in the next 20 years will rely heavily on soldiers who have experienced over 10 years of war and all the traumatic events that war entails. The risk of developing PTSD increases with each exposure to a traumatic event. Without more focus on PTSD prevention, the next war could see a large increase in PTSD, which could dramatically affect combat performance. Determining factors that may contribute to or protect from the development of PTSD could help develop measures/programs aimed at prevention. These factors are extremely complex because they involve interactions between pre-trauma characteristics/factors, peri-trauma characteristics/factors, and post-trauma characteristics/factors. Each of these sets of characteristics/factors has biological, psychological, and social components that could affect development of PTSD.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 18, 2013
- Accession Number
- ADA601689
Entities
People
- Brian C. Campbell
Organizations
- Marine Corps University