Centers Diagnose, Treat, Educate On Deployment Health Issues

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Also Included In: Aid / Disasters
Article Date: 23 Sep 2007 - 0:00 PDT

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The Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP), the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress (CSTS) and other Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences' (USU) military medical education and research programs are collaborating and extending the knowledge base and treatment capacity of the military health system.

The CDP, which is directed by David S. Riggs, Ph.D., is responsible for educating behavioral health specialists in deployment psychology and was developed to promote the education of psychologists and other behavioral health specialists about issues pertaining to the deployment of military personnel.

As the duration and frequency of military deployments increase, service members and their families are faced with increasing behavioral health difficulties associated with or exacerbated by deployment. CDP is an innovative Department of Defense training consortium, which has been established to better meet the deployment-related mental and behavioral health needs of military personnel and their families. The CDP is a tri-service center funded by Congress to train military and civilian psychologists, psychology interns/residents, and other behavioral health professionals to provide high quality deployment-related behavioral health services to military personnel and their families.

The CDP has a multi-faceted mission. It is designing and conducting behavioral health courses, developing training materials and increasing the awareness of the deployment-related behavioral health needs of service members and their families. In the future the CDP will take an active role in guiding deployment-related policy and program development, operations, and management through training and research efforts. In the last three months alone, the CDP has trained more than 100 mental health professionals across the country in various military health facilities to work with service members and their families. Current training topics include treatments for post traumatic stress disorder, caring for the seriously medically injured personnel and family issues related to deployment. The center is developing additional training modules to assist military mental health care providers working in deployed situations and addressing some of the unique concerns of reservists and the National Guard.

The center is part of USU's mission to educate and train military and civilian health care professionals to "Care for Those in Harm's Way."

Because of the university's militarily unique mission, its curriculum as well as its research and service focus on the needs of our military and their families. An additional program at USU, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress headed by Robert J. Ursano, M.D., professor/chair, Department of Psychiatry, is leading national efforts in mental health, diagnosis, treatment and suicide prevention with a particular focus on deployment health, prevention, and services to our military personnel and their families. The center educates the public on emerging traumatic stress caused by combat injuries and applies innovative approaches to care not only for troops, but also their family members. For more information about the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress visit: http://www.centerforthestudyoftraumaticstress.org.

Health care professionals at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress (CSTS) launched the "Courage to Care for Me" campaign as part of the "Courage to Care" initiative this past April, during the Month of the Military Child. The campaign is intended to raise awareness of the strength and courage required in parenting during stressful times of deployment, redeployment, extended deployment and reintegration into one's home life upon return from duty. For more information about the campaign visit: http://www.couragetocareforme.org.

Dr. Stephen Cozza, associate director of the CSTS contributed to the development of an outreach kit by Sesame Workshop aimed at helping young children of service members deal with the stresses of military deployments. The kit is titled Talk, Listen, Connect: Helping Families During Military Deployment. The kit includes a DVD which features the Sesame Street Muppets, and addresses the challenges and concerns children experience during various stages of deployment. The kit is available online at: http://www.sesameworkshop.org/tlc.

Located on the grounds of the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) and across from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., USU is the nation's federal school of medicine and graduate school of nursing. Students are active-duty uniformed officers in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Public Health Service, who are being educated to deal with wartime casualties, national disasters, emerging infectious diseases, and other public health emergencies.

The university specializes in military and public health medicine which is more than practicing medicine in the military or public health service, and differs significantly from civilian medicine. Military/public health medicine focuses on keeping the people healthy and especially in the military, involves disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment by medical personnel who are integral to the operations they support.

Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU)
4301 Jones Bridge Rd.
Bethesda, MD 20814-4799
United States
http://www.usuhs.mil