We’ve started to review the area of PTSD, and quickly realized our interest needs to go beyond PTSD to all mental health disorders suffered by former Armed Forces personnel. The MOD issues an interesting report every year, UK Armed Forces Mental Health, downloadable here. The PDF of the 2013/14 report is here. The MOD has no responsibility for the mental health of former Armed Forces personnel, so we’ve sent a FoI request to the Department of Health to learn more about their strategies and programmes.
The 2013/14 MOD report shows that Neurotic Stress Disorders are the most prevalent mental health disorders among serving personnel. PTSD has accounted for 8-12% of all neurotic disorders since 2007/8 (p.26). 6.2% of female personnel presented at MOD DCMHs (Departments of Community Mental Health) with mental health disorders in 2013/14, compared with 2.7% of male personnel (p.10).
