ArticleBMJ military health2023
Age at entry to UK military service and long-term mental health.
Article in BMJ military health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Current perspectives on the mental health of UK military personnel and veterans.British medical bulletin · 2025Review
- Structural and functional social support in UK military veterans during the COVID-19 pandemic and associations with mental health and wellbeing: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- The impact of resilience on the mental health of military personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic: coping styles and regulatory focus.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Suicide among Scottish military veterans: follow-up and trends.Occupational and environmental medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionIt has been suggested that '
methodsRetrospective cohort study of 78 157 veterans in Scotland, born between 1945 and 1995 and and 252 637 matched non-veterans, with up to 37 years follow-up, using Cox proportional hazard models to examine the association between veteran status and cumulative risk of major mental health disorder, stratified by birth cohort, and age at recruitment for the veterans.
resultsThe risk of mental health disorder in the veterans increased with age at entry, ranging from HR 1.12, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.18, p<0.001 for junior entrants to HR 1.37, 95% CI 1.27 to 1.80, p<0.001 for those aged 20-25 years at entry. The pattern was most marked for veterans born before 1960, and age at recruitment had little impact in recent birth cohorts. Post-traumatic stress disorder accounted for most of the observed differences. Younger age at recruitment was associated with longer service, median 7.4 years (IQR 3.0-14.7) compared with 5.6 years (IQR 2.1-11.7) for entrants aged 20-25 years.
conclusionWe found no evidence that early recruitment is associated with adverse impact on long-term mental health. Paradoxically, it was veterans who entered service at age 20-25 years who demonstrated increased risk, although this attenuated in more recent birth cohorts.
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