Mental Health Visits Seen Rising as Parent Deploys

[cory777]

Source: NYT

Young children in military families are about 10 percent more likely to see a doctor for a mental difficulty when a parent is deployed than when the parent is home, researchers are reporting Monday in the most comprehensive study to date of such families’ use of health insurance during wartime.

Visits for mental health concerns, like anxiety and acting out at school, were the only kind to increase during deployment; complaints for all physical problems declined, the study found.

Researchers have long known that deployment puts a strain on families, particularly spouses. Experts said the new study, being published in the journal Pediatrics and including more than half a million children, significantly fills out the picture of the entire family as multiple deployments have become a norm.

“This study gives us an excellent beginning to understand what’s happening” in military households, said Benjamin Karney, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s pretty amazing that they were able to look at essentially the entire military population and strongly document something we suspected was happening but didn’t know for sure.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/us/08child.html

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[Skittles]

1. I cannot imagine

I grew up as a military brat and that in itself is exceedingly tough (try living in two countries and five states during your teenage years, attending three high schools) - add WAR to it? I cannot imagine.

[HuckleB]

2. K & R!!!

I've seen too much of it, myself.

[Blandocyte]

3. The therapist they go to is the one Ermey plays in the Geico ad

Tissue?

Ermey