MONTEREY, Calif., Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The Veterans' Administration should expect up to 35 percent of those serving in Iraq to seek post-traumatic stress disorder treatment, U.S. researchers say.
Michael P. Atkinson of the Naval Postgraduate School and Adam Guetz and Lawrence M. Wein, both of Stanford University, says the tempo of deployment cycles in the Iraq War is higher than for any war since World War II.
The study authors combined a dynamic mathematical operations research model with deployment data and PTSD data from the Iraq War, and estimate that the PTSD rate among Iraq War veterans will be approximately 35 percent -- roughly double the rate from the raw survey data.
The study, published in the journal Management Science, says this doubling is due to the time lag between the PTSD-generating event and the onset of symptoms and to the fact that many surveyed troops will do subsequent deployments.
Consequently, the VA system, which is already experiencing significant delays for PTSD treatment provision, urgently needs to ramp up its mental health resource capacity, the researchers say in a statement.
