By the Numbers - Aug. 24, 2015

By the Numbers - Aug. 24, 2015

138,197

The cumulative number of new post-traumatic stress disorder cases diagnosed in Service members who have deployed between 2002 through June 5, 2015, according to the latest iteration of the Congressional Research Service Report -- A Guide to U.S. Military Casualty Statistics: Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, Operation Inherent Resolve, Operation New Dawn, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom (August 8, 2015).

The U.S. Army Office of the Surgeon General (OSG), using the Defense Medical Surveillance System (DMSS), provided data on the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases.  According to Dr. Michael Carino of the OSG, a case of PTSD is defined as an individual with two or more outpatient visits or one or more hospitalizations during which PTSD was diagnosed. The threshold of two or more outpatient visits is used in the DMSS to increase the likelihood that the individual has, or had, clinically diagnosable PTSD. A single visit on record commonly reflects a service member who was evaluated for possible PTSD, but did not actually meet the criteria for clinical diagnosis.

PTSD Table