Measuring the Impact of Operational Stress: The Relevance of Assessing Stress-related Health Across the Deployment Cycle

INTRODUCTION: Mental health issues from intense or prolonged stress are a common concern in regard to military deployment. Deployments can objectively vary in stress exposure, but it is the individuals’ perception of that stress that affects sustainability, mental health, and combat fitness, which calls for the need of a protocol to evaluate and maintain a current estimation of stress impact. So, how can we assess the impact of stressors during different phases of deployment? MATERIALS AND METHODS: We used three psychological self-rating forms, the PSS14—Perceived Stress Scale, SMBM—Shirom Melamed Burnout Measure, and KSQ—Karolinska Sleep Questionnaire, to measure the impact of stress before (T1), during (T2), and at homecoming (T3). We also wanted to see if T1 or T2 results could predict T3 results to be able to better prepare the homecoming program.The forms were handed out to Swedish soldiers deployed in Mali in 2017. The forms were collected as a way to assess the status of the mental health load at three timepoints based on the personnel function as a way to assess the current “psychological fitness level”. RESULTS: The results show that stress measured using PSS14 was high at homecoming. The same result was observed for SMBM. No measures from T1 or T2 could however predict the T3 results. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, we found that screening of all contingent staff is relatively easy and provides personnel with relevant data on mental health and stress at the current time. We also found that test results correlated between T1 and T2 but not with T3. This indicates that there might be different stressors that affect staff at different timepoints.