Military Outcome of Trainees Served by an Army Mental Hygiene Consultation Service

Abstract

Abstract : Clinical and personnel records on 1354 basic and advanced trainees (excluding stockade prisoners and applicants for pre-flight or officer training) referred to the Fort Ord Mental Hygiene Consultation Service (MHCS) during calendar years 1962 and 1963 were studied in order to ascertain the military outcome and the influence of demographic/idiographic/situational variables upon success-failure. A control group consisting of 213 draftees not referred to MHCS was also included in the study. Success was defined by completion of the soldier's obligated tour of duty; failure, as premature separation from active duty. More than 50 per cent of the MHCS referrals failed to complete their obligated tours of duty, compared to eight per cent of the non-mental hygiene controls. Success was found to be related to certain demographic/idiographic variables, especially S's component and education. The kind and/or amount of service rendered by MHCS did not influence success in the subsample of soldiers returned to duty. Implications of the findings for present day practices of military social and preventive psychiatry are drawn. The soldier's personal commitment behind a decision to exit from the Army is felt to be the common denominator running through the cases who failed to complete their obligated tours. It is suggested that MHCS services retrench and that MHCS operations be re-designed, re-programmed, and re-named so that military social and preventive psychiatry may develop an applicable technology. (Author)