(2) how many service personnel who have served in (a) Afghanistan since 2001 and (b) Iraq since 2003 his Department has recorded as having a mental health condition of each type in each year since 2001.
[holding answer 3 February 2009]: Since July 2007 the Defence Analytical Services and Advice (DASA) organisation has reported on the Psychiatric Morbidity of the UK armed forces. Quarterly reports for the whole of 2007 are available to view both in the Library of the House and on the DASA website at:
www.dasa.mod.uk
Equivalent verified data prior to 2007 are not available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
The morbidity report shows the number of new attendances at military Departments of Community Mental Health (DCMHs) during each quarter and the results of the initial mental health assessment. The figures shown in the following table are extracted from the morbidity report and show initial assessments of mental disorder broken down by operational deployment for the calendar year 2007.
Deployment: theatres of operation Iraq and/or Afghanistan1 Iraq Afghanistan1 Not known2 ICD-10 description Patients seen Patients seen Patients seen Patients seen All patients seen 2,562 2,176 464 271 All patients assessed with a mental disorder 1,898 1,725 375 155 Psychoactive substance use 216 198 38 13 disorders due to alcohol3 150 140 27 8 Mood disorders 395 365 57 34 Depressive episode 314 288 51 33 Neurotic disorders 1,188 1,071 265 86 PTSD 145 124 48 6 Adjustment disorders 705 639 148 31 Other mental and behavioural disorders 99 91 15 22 No mental disorder 501 451 89 116 No assessment details 163 147 37 0 1 Does not include personnel deployed to Afghanistan during the period January 2003 to October 2005. 2 Records supplied without identifiers. 3 Data for disorders due to use of alcohol are not available for the period January—March 2007.
DASA’s statistics show that the total number of new patients assessed with a mental health disorder during their first appointment at MOD’s out-patient DCMHs during 2007 is 19.9 per 1,000 strength of the armed forces, or 1.99 per cent. This figure covers all patients, including those who had not deployed operationally. Of the 190,400 regular members of the armed forces in service on 1 January 2008, 56 per cent. had previously deployed on operations to Iraq, Afghanistan or both theatres.