Study assesses how military treats coping skills

PANAMA CITY — The need for services to deal with physical and psychological problems of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq will skyrocket for decades to come, officials say.

With that in mind, the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE) commissioned a study to identify factors that show scientific evidence of improving coping skills when dealing with stress for service members and returning veterans.

A report on the study, which has just been released, provides an assessment of how the military is incorporating these factors into their programs to promote service members’ and veterans’ psychological resilience.

Cmdr. Ron Donnerstag of Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Panama City Chapter 17 said much more needs to be done for veterans.

“We have a real problem out there right now,” he said.

From Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, veterans keep coming to the DAV with problems they are having with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “I think they have to do a lot more,” Donnerstag said.

The study, conducted by the RAND Center for Military Health Policy Research, included a systematic review of 270 scientific publications on psychological resilience.

The study showed that several of the factors already were being addressed in the programs and that results were positive, but that more standardization and systematic evaluation could strengthen program outcomes.

“But some are just being ushered out of the system,” Donnerstag said.

Donnerstag said those veterans who come home with traumatic brain injuries are more likely to need help filling out forms to get the care they need. Oftentimes, paperwork is filled out wrong and the veterans are on their own.

He also said it is easy for veterans with brain injuries to become homeless.

“I do see a lot of that around here,” he said.

Recommendations for improvements include creating a common definition for resilience, incorporating more evidence-based resilience factors, conducting more rigorous program evaluations through techniques such as randomized controlled trials, aligning resilience organizationally under operations instead of health care, and standardizing resilience measures to enable program comparison.

“This study has the kind of rich data that leaders and program managers will find very useful,” said U.S. Public Health Service Cmdr. George Durgin, DCoE resilience and prevention directorate. “This is a good example of how DCoE works to integrate knowledge. We lead efforts, like the RAND study, to ensure military services have the best evidence and best practices for promoting psychological health.”