Mental Health Advisory Team 9 (MHAT 9) Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) 2013 Afghanistan.

摘要

The Mental Health Advisory Team 9 (MHAT 9) 2013 mission to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) was directed by the Chief of Staff of the Army (CSA) and was supported by the leadership of US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A). As in previous years, the Office of The Surgeon General of the Army took the lead in mission execution and key support was provided by the Office of the Command Surgeon, USCENTCOM, the Office of the Command Surgeon, USFOR-A, and Task Force Medical-Afghanistan. The CSA directed the MHAT 9 to focus on the role of small unit leadership as a factor influencing the mental health and well-being of Soldiers. The CSA s focus was prompted, in part, by the Joint MHAT (J-MHAT) 8 finding of a small but significant decline in Soldiers perceptions of small unit officer leadership. Unlike the previous two J-MHATs, MHAT 9 focused exclusively on Soldiers. The mission of MHAT 9 was twofold: 1) to provide a theater-wide assessment of behavioral health and well-being while focusing on small unit leadership by surveying Soldiers in maneuver units, and 2) to provide recommendations to optimize unit behavioral health (BH). From 4 June to 30 June 2013, the MHAT 9 advanced party coordinated with the Division Surgeons for units in Regional Commands South and East to distribute surveys according to the sampling plan. Soldiers were randomly selected from maneuver units in the Afghanistan Theater of Operations (ATO) to complete the anonymous MHAT 9 survey. Surveys from 888 Soldiers from 41 Army maneuver platoons were returned and 39 platoons of the 41 platoons (95%) met the sampling plan criteria. The two platoons that did not meet sampling plan criteria differed significantly from the remaining platoons on key demographic variables and, thus, were excluded from the analysis, leaving 849 surveys in the analysis.