Abstract
Background: UK armed forces personnel are at risk of occupational psychological injury; they are often reluctant to seek help for such problems.
Objective: We aimed to examine and describe sources of support, prevalence and associates of help-seeking among UK serving and ex-serving personnel.
Method: A total of 1450 participants who self-reported a stress, emotional or mental health
problem in the past 3 years were sampled from a health and wellbeing study and subsequently completed a telephone interview comprising measures of mental disorder symptoms, alcohol misuse and help-seeking behaviour.
Results: Seven per cent of participants had not sought any help, 55% had accessed medical sources of support (general practitioner or mental health specialist), 46% had received formal non-medical (welfare) support and 86% had used informal support. Gender, age, perceived health, functional impairment, social support, deployment, alcohol and comorbidity impacted upon the choice of help source.
Conclusions: This study found that the majority of those with perceived mental health problems sought some form of help, with over half using formal medical sources of support.
Objective: We aimed to examine and describe sources of support, prevalence and associates of help-seeking among UK serving and ex-serving personnel.
Method: A total of 1450 participants who self-reported a stress, emotional or mental health
problem in the past 3 years were sampled from a health and wellbeing study and subsequently completed a telephone interview comprising measures of mental disorder symptoms, alcohol misuse and help-seeking behaviour.
Results: Seven per cent of participants had not sought any help, 55% had accessed medical sources of support (general practitioner or mental health specialist), 46% had received formal non-medical (welfare) support and 86% had used informal support. Gender, age, perceived health, functional impairment, social support, deployment, alcohol and comorbidity impacted upon the choice of help source.
Conclusions: This study found that the majority of those with perceived mental health problems sought some form of help, with over half using formal medical sources of support.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 1556552 |
Journal | European journal of psychotraumatology |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 14 Jan 2019 |
Keywords
- Alcohol misuse
- depression
- help-seeking
- military personnel
- post-traumatic stress disorder
- quantitative methods
- veteran