ARMY: PSYCHIATRISTS NEEDED ON WARFRONT

A report the Army released Thursday recommends sending civilian psychiatrists to the warfront, supplementing members of the uniformed mental health corps.

Surveying a force strained by its seventh year of war, officials found that more than one in four soldiers on repeat tours of duty screened positive for anxiety, depression and other mental health problems. That was comparable to the previous year.

By PAULINE JELINEK Associated Press Writer

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. troops on the battlefield found it harder to get the mental health care they needed last year, when violence rose in Afghanistan and new tactics pushed soldiers in Iraq farther from their operating bases.

A report the Army released Thursday recommends sending civilian psychiatrists to the warfront, supplementing members of the uniformed mental health corps.

Surveying a force strained by its seventh year of war, officials found that more than one in four soldiers on repeat tours of duty screened positive for anxiety, depression and other mental health problems. That was comparable to the previous year.

The report found more troops reported marital problems, an increased suicide rate, higher morale in Iraq, but a greater percentage of depression among soldiers in Afghanistan.

"They do show the effects of a long war," said Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry consultant to Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker.

Added Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, a deputy surgeon general: "I think the fact that they are doing as well as they are with the demands they are under speaks to a strength and resiliency of the men and women of America."

The report was drawn from the work of a team of mental health experts who traveled to the wars last fall. The experts surveyed more than 2,200 soldiers in Iraq and nearly 900 in Afghanistan.

In the fifth such effort, the team also gathered information from more than 400 medical professionals, chaplains, psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health workers deployed there.

The recommendation of civilian mental health professionals for battlefield duty is unusual. But civilian contract employees are doing many other jobs in Iraq, from security to providing food service.

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