Examining the Usage of Supportive Programs Available to the National Guard

Background and Purpose: National Guard (NG) service members face many challenges with mental health and in transitioning back home after service. Fortunately, there are many supportive programs offered to the NG to assist with these challenges. This research examines how frequently these programs are used. Our hypothesis is that depression and suicidal ideation will be associated with mental health program usage and that number of deployments and number of negative experiences during deployment will be associated with transition support program usage.

Methods: Data from a survey created and distributed online by the National Center for Veteran Studies (NCVS) at the University of Utah was used in this analysis. The sample contained 997 service members in the Army NG and Air NG in Utah and Idaho. Descriptive statistics were analyzed to determine the frequency of usage of each program. Two models of multivariate OLS regression were used, one to predict usage of mental health programs and one to predict usage of transition support programs. The measures used for the main variables were the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) for depression, one question from the Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Interview (SITBI) for suicidal ideation, and an adapted version of the Life Events Checklist (LEC) for number of negative experiences during deployment. Rank, NG branch, education level, mental health stigma, employment status, and unit cohesion were used as control variables in the regressions.

Results: For mental health programs, it was most common for the soldiers to have used none of the programs (33.62%, n = 275) and the frequency drops greatly as the number of programs increases. For transition support programs, it was also most common for the soldiers to have used none of the programs (16.87%, n = 136); however, it was also very common for 1 (16.38%, n = 132) and 2 (15.88%, n = 128) programs to be used. There were several programs that were used by less than 10% of the participants. Depression, suicidal ideation, and negative experiences during deployment were all positively associated with mental health program usage. Rank, NG branch, and education were negatively associated with mental health program usage. For the model predicting transition support program usage, number of deployments and negative deployment experiences were positively associated with the outcome variable. NG branch was negatively associated with transition program usage.

Conclusions and Implications: The results support both hypotheses. It seems as though both types of programs are being used by those with demonstrated need. Many of the programs that were used the least also had high rates of respondents saying that they had never heard of the programs. This implies that one major area for change should be increasing knowledge and awareness of the programs already available to the NG members. Further research could focus on what needs the NG service members perceive that they have and if those needs match the purposes of the programs offered.