NATO studie of mental health training in army recruits

The goal of the NATO Human Factors & Medicine (HFM) Research & Technology Task Group (RTG-203) "Mental Health Training" is to develop prototypes of mental health and resilience training for service members. Mental health and resilience training has the potential to strengthen the ability of service members to respond to the psychological demands of military life. Ideally, these kinds of mental health and resilience training should begin during basic training and be followed across the individual’s military career. To-date, there has not been an international review of resilience training during basic training nor an assessment of what service members perceive as useful from their perspective. In response to this knowledge gap, RTG-203 has initiated a survey and interview with approximately ten new recruits from each participating nation to inform the development of such training. Panel members are responsible for conducting data collection in their own nation. The presentation reports on the initial results of this international study from four participating nations. The survey and interview target perceptions of training demands, approaches to coping, case studies to demonstrate coping strategies, and the perceived need for mental health training. Results will summarize these findings and demonstrate how such research can be used to inform a NATO prototype of training materials. Limitations of the research methods and the development of internationally-relevant lessons learned will be discussed. This presentation is intended for the Psychological Resiliency and Mental Health Training tracks.