Morale among U.S. military down in Afghanistan, up in Iraq

Morale has fallen sharply among U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan since 2005 according to an Army mental health survey released on Friday. In Iraq, morale has increased slightly.

Those were among findings of two teams of behavioral health experts who surveyed and interviewed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the sixth Mental Health Advisory Team (MHAT). According to the Army media release:

The teams, working in Iraq from February to March and in Afghanistan from April to June, formed the sixth Mental Health Advisory Team (MHAT VI) since the start of the wars, evaluating the psychological health of troops and the behavioral-health care resources in theater. The teams included research psychologists, a social worker, a psychiatric nurse and enlisted behavioral-health specialists.

The survey tells a story of two very different wars: The war in Iraq is drawing down, an end appears to be visible and mental health indicators are improving, while the war in Afghanistan is ramping up, with no end in sight and mental health indicators are declining. In Afghanistan, suicide rates are increasing while in Iraq the suicide rate did not go up in 2008 for the first time since 2004. Statistics on depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are mirror images. In Iraq this situation peaked in 2006 at 22 percent and fell to 13.3 for the survey period. In Afghanistan the figure was 21.4 percent. This represents a slight improvement over 2007 (23.4 percent) but double the 10.4 percent figure in 2005. The report also identified a link between lower morale accompanied by more mental health problems and number of deployments. Three or more deployments and the likelihood of mental health problems increases significantly. Dwell time at home between deployments is important to a soldier's mental health. “The dwell time effect is pretty strong. It turned out to be more important than some of the other variables,” commented Lt. Col. Paul D. Bliese, director of the division of psychiatry and neuroscience at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). Bliese led the team in Iraq. In Afghanistan, unit morale shows a precipitous decline. Relatively stable at 10.5 percent in 2005 and 10.2 percent in 2007, it dropped approximately 40 percent to 5.7 percent in 2009.