News flash: Canadian soldiers are just like other Canadians

From a CP story by Nelson Wyatt:

Even before Canadian troops faced the day-to-day stress of combat in Afghanistan, soldiers were reluctant to seek help for mental problems, a newly released study says.

The survey of 1,220 soldiers with mental disorders and problems like alcoholism indicated that four out of six did not seek treatment, citing a variety of reasons.

Some believed the condition was temporary while others said they distrusted military management or the military health service.

It was not clear if soldiers didn't trust the quality of care or feared the impact that treatment for a mental disorder would have on their career, said Deniz Fikretoglu, the study's lead author and an expert in post-traumatic stress disorder.

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While the Canadian Forces was the Petri dish for this particular research, Fikretoglu said the findings are likely applicable to other military forces in the world.

"We did look at whether or not our results were similar to what had been reported in other countries such as the U.S. and we find that our findings are very, very similar," she said.

About 8,000 of the 57,000 full-time and 24,000 reserve members of the military at the time were initially surveyed. Of those, 1,220 met the criteria for having at least one mental disorder in the previous year.

Fikretoglu acknowledged the original questions for the survey did not address how much the respondent adhered to the stiff-upper-lip military culture which puts an emphasis on fitness for duty.

"We need to take a closer look at why people are not seeking services and what role military cultural values may play," she said.

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The military needs to destigmatize mental health issues and change "health delivery systems to gain the trust of military members," Brunet said.

Boy, reading that, you'd think this problem is worse in the military than other places, right? I mean, why else focus on the "stiff-upper-lip military culture" and emphasize how the military specifically needs to "destigmatize mental health issues?"

So I spent fourteen seconds on Google, trying to find out how the CF rates compared to those of civilian Canada. Turns out they're pretty much the same:

One in five people in Canada has a mental health problem at some point in life. But only about 30 per cent seek help. Some people may not know they have a problem. Or they may not know that help is available. Some may not be able to use the help because of barriers like cost, language and transportation.

Others don’t seek help because of the stigma (prejudice and discrimination) attached to mental health problems. They feel embarrassed or ashamed. They worry that they will be judged and misunderstood. They worry about being discriminated against.

Look, are mental health issues in the CF something that requires attention and serious work? Speaking as someone who has been personally affected more than once by depression and alcoholism in the CF, with tragic consequences, I wholeheartedly agree that mental health issues need to be destigmatized.

But that's not just a CF issue, as the CP story leads us to believe. It's a societal issue. Our uniformed soldiers seem to be no more or less likely to seek treatment than the average Canadian civilian. Which puts the "news" reported by CP in a bit of a different light.

And if our intrepid CP reporter had spent a few short seconds asking the first question that would pop into any reasonably inquisitive person's mind instead of working the all-too-predictable "victim" angle, he might have been able to provide that context.