Report: Mental-health care is poor

Fewer than half who need such services are receiving care, the study found.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Many Iraq war soldiers, veterans and their families are not getting needed psychological help because a stressed military's mental-health system is overwhelmed and understaffed, a task force of psychologists found.
The panel's 67-page report calls for the immediate strengthening of the military mental-health system. It cites a 40 percent vacancy rate in active-duty psychologists in the Army and Navy, resources diverted from family counselors and a weak transition for veterans leaving the military.
The findings were released Sunday by the American Psychological Association.
More than three out of 10 soldiers met the criteria for a "mental disorder," but far less than half of those in need sought help, the report found. Sometimes that's because of the stigma of having mental-health problems, other times the help simply wasn't available, according to the task force. And there are special difficulties in getting help to National Guard and Reserve troops, who have been used heavily in Iraq, the report said.
The special task force found no evidence of a "well-coordinated or well-disseminated approach to providing behavioral health care to service members and their families."
Few quality programs
The psychology task force, chaired by an active military psychologist and consisting of psychologists working for the military or Veterans Affairs department, said "relatively few high-quality" mental-health programs exist in the military now.
"There are tremendous needs; the system is stressed by these needs," said pediatric psychologist Jeanne Hoffman, a task force member and a civilian pediatric psychologist at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu.
The Defense Department's mental-health experts hadn't read the report. Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said the military is proud of its mental-health services record, including a new program this year that checks up on service members after they return home to their families.
"For the past four years, DOD has been aggressively reaching out to support our military personnel before and after deployments. This is unprecedented," Smith said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "We have assessed the health, including the mental health of more than 1 million service members before and after deployments. We have worked with their families and others to address mental health concerns associated with deployments and with war."
Vacancies
One of the major problems is that four out of 10 "active-duty licensed clinical psychologist" slots in the Army and Navy are not filled, a problem worsened by the dire need to send mental-health experts into war zones, the report said.
That high vacancy rate has several side effects. One is that the psychologists left are overwhelmed, the report said. It found that one-third of Army mental-health personnel reported "high burn out" and 27 percent reported "low motivation for their work."
Because of the shortage, there are even fewer stateside therapists to help families of those deployed and to help returning soldiers readjust, the report found.
Hoffman, the pediatric psychologist, said she's seen children regress on toilet training, have severe headaches, stomach pains, and suffer in school because of the stress of having a parent deployed.
Dealing with PTSD
And for soldiers and veterans returning home, only 10 percent to 20 percent of the military's mental-health experts are trained to help those with post-traumatic stress disorder, the report found."I know guys that are waiting for appointments," said Russell Terry, chief executive officer of the Iraq War Veterans Organization. "I know guys who are dealing with doctors who have no concept of PTSD."
Terry was on the phone with an Iraq war veteran last year when the vet killed himself.
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