A Study of Premature Discharge in taiwanese Conscript Soldiers with Mental Illness

[[abstract]]Life in the military are disciplined and are mostly evolved around team work, however, such particular arrangement may be stifling for some who find difficulties in adjusting. Soldiers joining the army are often trained to obey, be flexible and to perform under pressure, however, some soldiers may mal-adjust to such rigid life style due to stress and inflexibility to cope, hence causing problems such as depression, anxiety, delusion or even to the extent of self-mutilation and suicide, which eventually needed to be discharged prematurely from the military. Thus, some background information such as age, gender, education, relationship with family members, whether candidates have history of mental illness, self-mutilation ,alcohol and drugs abuse are crucial indications and shall be thoroughly examined prior to the candidate selection process. This study has looked into conscript soldiers from a military hospital that were prematurely discharged from the time frame of 2004 to 2008. By using both chart review and descriptive analysis methods, it is to be concluded that 95.9% prematurely discharged soldiers were linked with mental illness, which revealed signs of major depression(56.4%), mental insufficiency(18.8%), personality disorder(13.6%) and neurosis(7.1%). The study also found out that there is a high probability that these prematurely discharged soldiers having past histories on self-mutilation, suicidal attempts, and alcohol or drugs abuses. The risk factors of mental disorder which result in prematurely discharged were found , they are poor family structure, pre-enlistment self mutilation, pre-enlistment suicidal attempt, history of substance abuse , post-enlistment self mutilation and post-enlistment suicidal attempt