Measuring Barriers to Mental Health Care in the Military

Résumé du livre

Many service members report suffering from mental health conditions, such as depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and problematic substance use. While the proportion of service members initiating treatment has increased in the past decade, fewer than half of the service members who indicate a need for mental health services actually receive care. Service members report a variety of barriers, both logistical (e.g., difficulty scheduling an appointment) and attitudinal (e.g., negative beliefs about treatment), to seeking mental health care. This report summarizes the findings of a study to develop an item bank of barriers to mental health care for the Department of Defense (DoD); establish the reliability and preliminary validity of the item bank and a short form (i.e., a subset of items from the bank that can be used as a short survey); and identify options for how DoD can use the item bank to assess and monitor barriers to such care. During the course of the study, the authors also identified a series of facilitators of mental health care. The analyses resulted in the creation of two item banks-a 54-item bank assessing barriers to mental health care and a six-item bank assessing facilitators of care-and a 15-item short form culled from the barriers bank. The contents of this report will be of particular interest to policymakers and health policy officials within DoD, as well as policymakers in other sectors who sponsor or manage efforts to reduce barriers to mental health and increase treatment seeking and appropriate treatment utilization.--