Army Suicide Rate Hits Record Despite New Mental Fitness Program

November 18, 2009 1:08 p.m. EST

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Suicides in the Army are set to hit a record, having reached the same number as last year. But military officials believe the statistic belies the progress being made in addressing what they say has been a historical deficit in how mental health problems are prevented and treated.

According to Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli, 140 active-duty soldiers and 71 soldiers not on active duty killed themselves this year. The active-duty suicides are equivalent to the total in 2008, while the number on non-active duty soldiers are higher by 14.

"Obviously we would prefer not to have another suicide this year or in the years that follow. But we know that will not be the case," Chiarelli said in a press conference. "We talk about these incidents of suicide using figures and percentages. However the grim reality is, each case represents an individual, a person with family and friends and a future ahead of him or her... it is not a single problem with a defined set of symptoms or markers."

"Over the past eight months, every suicide has been briefed to me," he added. "And although we have made changes to Army policy based on many of the lessons learned, we still haven't found any statistically significant causal linkage that would allow us to effectively predict human behavior."

Chiarelli said suicides rose at Fort Campbell, and fell in Fort Hood, a post where troops prepare for and return from deployment and known for its abnormally high suicide rate. In addition, most of the suicides at Fort Campbell were by soldiers who never deployed.

Defense officials have been taking aggressive steps to address mental health issues of troops amid debate in Washington about whether to send more troops in the Afghan war, which is on its eighth year.

Roughly $3.3 billion is allocated in the 2010 defense budget for caring for injuries such as post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments last month also held its first ever mental health summit.

"It is important to put these numbers in context and to talk about why we believe, despite these numbers, that we are making some progress," Chiarelli said in his press conference. "Since March, the general trendline, with the exception of a couple of months, has been down. And we attribute this reduction in the number of suicides to the many actions we have taken, since February, to inform and educate leaders and soldiers on this important issue."

The Army is working to end the stigma associated with seeking and receiving help for mental health, and has a new Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program that trains troops to be psychologically resilient.

It also has developed a new questionnaire for Military Entrance Processing stations, and for the first time gave a full battalion of returning soldiers mental health evaluations.

"We had a portion of that population, of that battalion, do face-to-face. And we had a portion of that population do it online," Chairelli explained. "The key here is to be able to supplement our behavior health care providers for the return of a battalion. We want to increase this to a brigade and provide everybody, early on in the process, that evaluation and to come back at the 90-180-day mark and do it again, to identify those individuals who may be having trouble with reintegration."

The Army is sorely in need of healthcare providers to continue its efforts. It has a shortage of about 300 substance abuse counselors and 800 mental healthcare providers.