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Women exposed to combat trauma as resilient as men

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Summary of story from Health US News, June 7, 2011

A new study, showing that women are as resilient as men when it comes to dealing with post-combat trauma, is set to challenge the Pentagon’s policy of barring women from ground combat.

It found that male and female military personnel exposed to combat zone trauma tend to experience similar mental health problems and recover at the same rate.

The finding, the first to examine the role of gender on combat-linked stress after deployment, was based on a survey completed by American men and women deployed between October 2007 and July 2008 in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The study had two major findings, according to lead author Dawne S. Vogt, an associate professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine.

“One is that more women than ever before are experiencing combat. So although men continue to experience it at slightly higher rates, the difference in exposure is relatively small.”

“The other one is that this suggests that women may be just as resilient as men in the year following return from deployment,” Vogt said.

“Which is a novel finding, because the broader trauma literature has historically found that women are more vulnerable to trauma exposure. But in this study you’re not seeing that.”

The authors noted that the Pentagon’s current official policy bars women from direct participation in ground combat, although they are nonetheless deployed in numerous risky combat situations.

That official ban has been the subject of much recent debate, despite the fact that according to the Department of Defense, more than 750 women have been killed or wounded in action in either the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as of 2009.

“One implication is I think people need to realise that women are experiencing combat too, even though at slightly lower levels,” noted Vogt, who is also a researcher at the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the VA Boston Healthcare System.

“And therefore that needs to be taken into consideration when they come home, in the context of caring for them in the health care setting.”

“And the other implication,” she said, “is that these findings are particularly relevant given the recent call for the military to reverse its long-standing policy barring women from ground combat.”

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