Organization and execution of current practices of deployment-related mental health support

Mental Health support (MHS) is an integral part of the whole chain of events within military organizations. Several countries are delivering this support for troops that are active in the current operation in Afghanistan (ISAF). Between 2009-2010 TNO Defense, Safety and Security, part of the Netherlands Organization of Applied Scientific Research (TNO), executed a project named 'Assessment of Organization and Execution of Current Practices of Deployment-related MH Support (DRMHS)'. The main goal of this project was to assess protocols and current practices of MHS during and after operational deployment (i.e., prevention, intervention, and treatment). Because nowadays service members are often deployed several times, MHS after deployment can be considered pre-deployment MHS. Therefore, MHS before deployment was also assessed in this project. The countries Australia (AUS), Canada (CAN), Great Britain (GBR), the Netherlands (NLD) and the United States of America (USA) participated in this project. Information was gathered and evaluated by document-analysis and by interviewing key-players in the field of Military MHS of each nation. Both were undertaken by means of a semi-structured interview protocol, especially developed for this project. The deliverables of this project are a TNO report and scientific paper describing the current practises of DRMHS of the individual countries as well as a comparison of DRMHS between countries. The current paper focuses on the comparison between countries. The comparison is non-competitive, and aims to identify opportunities for innovative interventions and assessments. The results of the whole project can be used to develop new policies and practices that strengthen the Military MH care the participating organizations currently provide in order to sustain a good work environment, operational effectiveness and MH well-being of their service members. Furthermore, the results can be used to develop an even more efficient collaboration between countries in their mutual MH care efforts, whereby they will be better able to face the challenges of current military missions.