Digest- V8, I3 Full Issue

1 TPC Digest 1 | TPC Digest Anthony Hartman, Hope Schuermann, Jovanna Kenney U.S. Army Soldiers’ Trust and Confidence in Mental Health Professionals S ince the beginning of the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, military men and women have been returning from combat tours in waves with mental health issues. Despite available resources, many choose to never seek help from a trained professional. This has led to a mental health epidemic in military communities, and subsequently mental health professionals and researchers eagerly have begun to explore the root of this problem. Research from the beginning years of the conflicts indicated that the major reasons that returning veterans may not seek treatment were tied to social and professional stigma and concerns about negatively impacting their careers. Bolstered by the new evidence, military leaders, policymakers, and mental health professionals quickly began implementing new rules and programs to diminish—if not eliminate—any stigmas associated with seeking mental health services. Although their efforts greatly reduced those particular barriers to care, it seems to have had very little impact on the number of soldiers seeking help with mental health issues. Perhaps other variable, besides professional and social stigma, are influencing these soldiers. A deeper review of the research indicated that low levels of trust and confidence in mental health practitioners and their treatments were consistently present amongst surveyed populations, leading to the development of this study. Our study explored active-duty U.S. Army soldiers’ trust and confidence in five mental health professionals—psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, licensed professional counselors, licensed clinical social workers, and licensed marriage and family therapists. To achieve this, we prepared vignettes representing eight of the most common psychological disorders and mental health issues found among returning service members. The 32 participants—all U.S. Army soldiers currently serving on active duty—read the vignettes and were asked to rank order the professionals with respect to their trust and then their confidence in the professionals helping the soldier from the vignette. The results indicated a few interesting trends. Chiefly, participants ranked professional counselors significantly higher than psychiatrists, marriage and family therapists, and social workers, placing them basically on par with clinical psychologists in the eyes of the sample. Results also showed that soldiers changed their preferences depending on the symptoms depicted in the vignette; while this was expected, the soldiers relied upon nothing more than professional titles and their own preconceived bias when submitting responses. This indicates that soldiers might not trust the mental health professionals readily available to them for every situation uniformly. We hope this study provokes counselors, leaders, and lawmakers to think critically about the array of mental health care professionals available to soldiers returning from combat. Not all soldiers and other service members are offered equal access to the above named mental health professionals, which could be a strong deterrent to treatment-seeking, even when desperately needed. We hope this study encourages counselors to continue making great strides with service members and pushing to be an available and effective resource for military communities. Anthony Hartman is a medical student at UT-Health San Antonio. Hope Schuermann is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Florida. Jovanna Kenney is a therapist at Genesis Psychiatric Center in San Antonio, TX. Correspondence can be addressed to Anthony Hartman, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, TX 78229, hartmann@livemail.uthscsa.edu.