30-40 percent of (IDF)conscripts request psychological help

[idontwantaname]

30-40 percent of conscripts request psychological help

By Gideon Alon

Between 30 and 40 percent of conscripts ask to see a mental health officer during their first year of service in the IDF, the head of the army's personnel division, Brigadier General Eitan Levy told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee yesterday during a discussion on suicides in the IDF.

Levy noted that just 6 percent of all those who see a mental health officer are discharged from military service. Figures on suicide among conscripts, career soldiers and reservists that were presented yesterday to the committee indicate that most cases involve conscripts. In 2003, for example, 37 soldiers committed suicide - 27 conscripts, and 10 career soldiers or reservists.

Since 1990, the highest suicide rate was in 1994, when 43 soldiers took their own lives during the course of their military service. This year, from January to mid-August, 15 soldiers have committed suicide.

Levy and other IDF representatives told the committee that 80 percent of the soldiers who had committed suicide had not been in contact with mental health officers and were not being treated in civilian frameworks either. The IDF representatives said most of the suicides had been spur of the moment and most had been carried out using army-issue weapons.

The IDF sources also said that some 50 percent of the suicides had taken place during the first half of the respective soldiers' military service. The sources added that the link between the suicides and the soldiers' military service was found to be negligible.

Suicides among male soldiers were more common than among female soldiers, the IDF representatives said, noting also that there was a correlation between suicide rates among conscripts and citizens in the same age group. Suicide rates among youth in the Western world were similar to those found in the IDF, the sources said.

[IA_Seth]

1. Link? n/t

[idontwantaname]

2. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/466009.html

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/466009.html


thanks.

[IA_Seth]

3. Depressing

I wonder how these figures compare to the US military's suicide rate?

It seems to me that the IDF is in a sad state of affairs.

[Gimel]

4. You might read

...the last line.

[IA_Seth]

5. So might you.....

The line says:

Suicide rates among youth in the Western world were similar to those found in the IDF, the sources said.

"Western youth" doesn't quite read US Military to me.....