ABSTRACT
Psychological Screening: Predicting Resilience to Stress ................................. 4 Why Is Psychological Screening Important? ..................................................... 4 Current Practice ..................................................................................................... 5 Risk Factors for Stress and Attrition ................................................................... 7
Demographic Factors ........................................................................................ 8 Psychosocial and Behavioral Factors .............................................................. 9
Aptitude and Intelligence ............................................................................ 9 Criminal History ........................................................................................ 10 Smoking Behavior ...................................................................................... 12 Mental Health History ............................................................................... 13 Childhood Physical or Sexual Abuse ........................................................14 Personality Traits ........................................................................................ 15
Conclusions and Recommendations ..................................................................16 Basic Research ...................................................................................................16 Enlistment Standards ..................................................................................... 17 Psychological Screening ................................................................................. 17 Information Sharing ....................................................................................... 18
References .............................................................................................................. 18
Screening for emotional problems routinely occurs at recruitment and military enlistment stations. Nonetheless, even aft er preenlistment screening is conducted, large numbers of military personnel are separated from the military due to behavioral or mental health problems. For example, in the U.S. Air Force alone, 15.8% of fi rst-term enlistments from 1994 to 1999 were later separated due to behavioral or mental health problems (Garb & Fiedler, 2006). Th is raises the question of how early screening might be improved to better identify individuals who are at risk or vulnerable to psychological disorder.
