Prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among Air Force service members returning from deployment

Early identification and management of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in service members returning from deployment is of great importance to the Air Force mental health leadership. Periodically monitoring the occurrence of PTSD symptoms and diagnosis using survey data from the DoD-wide Post-Deployment Health Assessment (PDHA), Post-Deployment Health Re-Assessment (PDHRA), and encounter data from the Military Health System is a critical step toward this effort. Methods for trend analysis by demographic and deployment-related variables are developed and quarterly reports are generated. The most recent analysis of over 100,000 service members revealed: 1) The demographic composition of deployed service members remained constant over the past two years; 2) The prevalence of PTSD symptoms within six months after deployment was: 1.5% for men and 2.0% for women; 1.5% for enlisted and 1.0% for officers; 3.0% for members deployed for more than 6 months and 0.8% for those deployed less than 3 months; 4.5% for members with combat exposure and 0.5% for those without combat exposure; 3) The prevalence of provider-diagnosed PTSD within six months after deployment was: 0.5% for men and 1.0% for women, ; 0.6% for enlisted and 0.3% for officers; 1.0% for members deployed more than 6 months and 0.2% for those deployed less than 3 months ; 4) Higher rates (self-reported or diagnosed) were consistently observed over time in the demographic sub-groups of ‘female' and ‘enlisted' and the deployment sub-groups of ‘longer deployment duration' and ‘combat exposure'; 5) ‘Combat exposure' remains the most significant factor.