What influences mental health treatment among military veterans?

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to determine what influences Veterans and their mental health treatment. This topic matters on a personal level for me as I am a Veteran and have had friends commit suicide. This topic matters on a much broader level for the many families out there losing their loved ones on a daily basis. It matters for those Veterans who sacrificed so much. Others in the past have focused on combat, PTSD/mental health, quality of care, self-medicating and the effect each had on the Veteran. The theory guiding this project was that once the influencers are identified in the Veteran’s mental health treatment, it would then be possible to use those, in such a way, to influence future Veterans and current Veterans who need the treatment but choose not to. This thesis uses a secondary data analysis research design with 1,888 Veterans from the 2013 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). The results showed that there was no correlation with mental health treatment and age, gender, race, combat pay, income, and drug and alcohol abuse. The correlations were with medication for mental health treatment and mental illness severity. Future focus should be more personal as in surveys or direct interviews as the information will address issues that were beyond the scope of this thesis. This will allow better acknowledgement of some of the outside influences, like age, income, marital status or roles that family and friends may play. This could also determine whether Veterans feel that medication helps or if they simply take it because they are told to.