Wartime Killing May Raise Veterans’ Thoughts of Suicide

Impact of deadly combat on mental health receives too little attention, study indicates

By Robert Preidt

MONDAY, April 23 (HealthDay News) — The experience of killing in war is strongly linked with suicidal thoughts, according to a study of U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War.Researchers analyzed data from a survey of a nationally representative sample of Vietnam War veterans and found that those with more killing experiences were twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts as those with fewer or no experiences of killing.

The experiences of killing included enemy combatants, prisoners, civilians in general, or women, children or the elderly.

The association between killing and suicidal thoughts remained even after adjusting for variables such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance use disorders and combat exposure.

The study, recently published online in the journal Depression and Anxiety, was led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco.

“The VA has a lot of very good mental health programs, including programs targeting suicide prevention. Our goal is to make those programs even stronger,” lead author Shira Maguen, a clinical psychologist at the VA medical center and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the university, said in a medical center news release.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_124390.html