Are you aware of the ADVANCE study?
ADVANCE is the Armed Services Trauma Rehabilitation Outcome Study. It is investigating the long-term physical
and psycho-social outcomes of battlefield casualties from the UK Armed Forces following deployment to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2014. More information can be found by clicking on the link here: ADVANCE
Their latest newsletter is out, and can be found here: ADVANCE Newsletters
The newsletter included the below on mental health:
Watch the brief video on the ADVANCE baseline mental health findings in short
for a summary of the recently published ADVANCE findings. The aim of this piece of ADVANCE research was to find out whether the injured group and the uninjured comparison group have differences in terms of their mental health outcomes. They looked at depression, anxiety, PTSD and mental health multimorbidity (PTSD with depression and/or anxiety).
In short, the findings showed that the injured group had greater rates of depression, anxiety and PTSD compared to the uninjured group. However, the type of injury seemed to have a significant impact. Participants with amputation-related injuries had very similar rates of mental health problems compared to the uninjured group, whereas those with non-amputation injuries had significantly higher rates of mental health problems.
One of the main questions that arises from these early findings is around the differences in outcomes between the amputees and the injured non-amputees. Why do amputees seem to have better mental health compared to injured non-amputees? The ADVANCE study are working on finding out the reasons for this, and will continue to work with participants to understand the reasoning.
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