Return-to-Duty Decision Making and Medical Staff Deployed to Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

This study characterizes behavioral health and concussion/traumatic brain injury (TBI) return-to-duty (RTD) decisions made by a subset of 47 combat-deployed medical staff (enlisted and officers). Behavioral health decisions were made more often and rated as more difficult than concussion/TBI decisions, despite higher confidence and training levels for behavioral health decisions. In terms of specialization, behavioral health officers reported making behavioral health decisions more often and having better training than medical officers, despite no differences in confidence or difficulty levels between groups for these types of decisions. Results indicate a need for greater understanding of RTD decision-making among enlisted personnel.

KEYWORDS:

• Behavioral health
• concussion
• decision
• deployment
• enlisted
• medical
• officer
• return-to-duty
• traumatic brain injury
• training

Funding

This study was conducted with core funding from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command's Psychological Health and Resilience research area.