↓ Skip to main content

Medical and Welfare Officers beliefs about post-deployment screening for mental health disorders in the UK Armed Forces: a qualitative study

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, April 2015
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • Average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age

Mentioned by

twitter
1 X user

Citations

dimensions_citation
3 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
48 Mendeley
Title
Medical and Welfare Officers beliefs about post-deployment screening for mental health disorders in the UK Armed Forces: a qualitative study
Published in
BMC Public Health, April 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12889-015-1695-4
Pubmed ID
Authors

Samantha Bull, Gursimran Thandi, Mary Keeling, Melanie Chesnokov, Neil Greenberg, Norman Jones, Roberto Rona, Stephani L Hatch

Abstract

This study aimed to examine currently serving United Kingdom (UK) military Medical and Welfare Officers views on the potential introduction of post-deployment screening for mental ill health. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 Medical and Welfare Officers. Interview transcripts were analysed using data-driven thematic analysis. Four themes were identified: positive views of screening; reliability of responses; impact on workload; and suggestions for implementation. Interviewees viewed the introduction of screening post-deployment as likely to increase awareness of mental health problems whilst also reporting that service personnel were likely to conceal their true mental health status by providing misleading responses to any screening tool. Concern over reliability of responses may provide one explanation for the reluctance of service personnel to seek help for problems, as they could feel they will not be taken seriously. Welfare Officers felt they would not have the knowledge or experience to respond to help-seeking. Although participants were concerned about potential impact on their personal workload, they indicated a desire to positively engage with the screening programme if research showed it was an effective tool to improve mental health care. Welfare and healthcare providers are well disposed towards a screening programme for mental health but highlight a few concerns in its implementation. In particular Welfare Officers appear to require more training in how to respond to mental ill health. Concerns about available funding and resources to respond to increased workload will need to be addressed should post-deployment screening for mental health be introduced in the UK military.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 48 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Indonesia 1 2%
United Kingdom 1 2%
Unknown 46 96%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 9 19%
Student > Ph. D. Student 6 13%
Other 3 6%
Researcher 3 6%
Professor > Associate Professor 3 6%
Other 8 17%
Unknown 16 33%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 9 19%
Social Sciences 6 13%
Medicine and Dentistry 5 10%
Nursing and Health Professions 3 6%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 1 2%
Other 4 8%
Unknown 20 42%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 November 2015.
All research outputs
#15,349,796
of 22,832,057 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#11,349
of 14,873 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#157,747
of 264,870 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#195
of 257 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,832,057 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 22nd percentile – i.e., 22% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 14,873 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.9. This one is in the 16th percentile – i.e., 16% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 264,870 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 31st percentile – i.e., 31% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 257 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 18th percentile – i.e., 18% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.