The mental health assessments are intended to ensure that military members are indeed capable of taking on the stress of a deployment.
Air Force Colonel Brendan Noone, a physician at Florida's Eglin Air Force Base physician, confirmed that mental health assessments were already part of routine physicals for airmen, the Pensacola News Journal reported.
The assessment for airmen consists of an online questionnaire. "It is a fairly straightforward questionnaire; it should take less than 30 minutes," Noone said.
The questions primarily focus on the sleep behavior as well as the airman's relationships and interactions with others. Once they've answered the questionnaire, a mental health representative conducts a phone interview with the airman in question, during which any alarming responses are brought to the attention of a primary care physician.
"There is really nothing to be worried about. We have tried to make a change in the Air Force to let people know that seeking mental health help isn't going to affect your career," Noone added.
According to the 2014 mental health study published in JAMA Psychiatry, the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder is 15 times higher among military personnel than civilians; the rate of depression is five times higher, nami.org reported. Suicide rates have also increased among troops deployed overseas.
A report released earlier in August by Rand Corporation found that while US Defense Department health care providers were very effective in screening for suicide risk, they weren't as good at actually providing follow up care. Stars and Stripes reports that only 30 percent of servicemembers with depression and 54 percent of servicemembers with post-traumatic stress disorder who were at risk of suicide received follow up care during the year-long study, which involved nearly 39,000 US service members.
