OTTAWA—Canadian soldiers who are deployed on overseas missions may be at greater risk of suicide, a new report concludes, raising worries about the thousands of troops who served in Afghanistan.

“Here is strong evidence that the CAF mission in Afghanistan has had a powerful impact on the mental health of an important minority of personnel who deployed in support of it,” the report concluded.

It cites “clear differences in the prevalence of mental disorders” between those who served in Afghanistan and other personnel.

The report says that “deployment-related trauma . . . and resulting mental disorders are plausible mechanisms for these associations.”

Some 40,000 troops served in Afghanistan during Canada’s 12-year mission there — a quarter of whom did more than one tour — and Canada’s military has seen a spike in traumatic disorders in the aftermath.

“The suicides are definitely an indirect consequence of war,” said Col. Rakesh Jetly, senior psychiatrist with the Canadian Forces’ Royal Canadian Medical Service.

“You go to war and people are going to get physically and psychologically wounded,” Jetly said in an interview Tuesday.

Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of defence staff, expressed his concern in light of the report.

“We already have an extensive suicide-prevention program in place, supported by highly capable and compassionate personnel, but clearly we must continually strive to improve,” he said Tuesday in a statement.

The findings flag another trend as well — those in the army appear at greater risk of suicide than personnel serving in other commands, such as the air force (80 deaths compared to 67 between 2002 and 2014).

Jetly said that finding is not surprising, given that the army bore the brunt of the long Afghan mission. “The mental-health burden has been on the army disproportionately,” said Jetly, who advises the military surgeon general on mental-health issues.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, himself a veteran of three tours in Afghanistan, said he was concerned by the findings.

“Throughout my career I have seen first-hand the demands of military service, and the sometimes enormous impact it can have on members and their families,” Sajjan said in a statement.

“This is particularly relevant, given our long combat mission in Afghanistan,” he said.

Sajjan said he has asked Vance to “examine this issue as a priority and to identify a way forward.”

The report, released Tuesday, updates previous assessments of suicides in the military between 1995 and 2014 with an examination of underlying risk factors.

During the period examined, 225 regular force males took their lives and 13 regular force women died by suicide.

It concludes there was no “statistically significant” increase in suicide rates, saying the number of suicides each year has remained “stable.” And it maintains that the suicide rate among military personnel is in line with the civilian population.

Still, the report highlights that the Canadian Forces suffered more suicides between 2010-2014 than the five-year period before that — 68 compared to 51.

And the new findings “suggest” a trend towards higher suicide rates among regular force males who had deployed on operations, compared to those who didn’t. The report said the trend “fell just short of statistical significance.”

The report also sheds greater light on the 16 suicides in 2014. It found that mental-health problems, including depression, failing relationships and being subject to disciplinary or legal proceedings were frequently reported by those who died by suicide.

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Jetly said that deployments and long absences from home can aggravate relationship woes and increase the risk of some mental illnesses.

Just over 13 per cent had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder more than three months prior to their death and 20 per cent had been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury.

The report’s authors say those findings point the way to areas where suicide prevention should be directed — “timely access to care, and in the provision of relationship, debt and anger counselling and education.”

“There’s tons more to do,” Jetly said, adding that the military is working on a number of fronts, looking to make biological and psychological breakthroughs to help reduce the number of suicides.

“The treatments we have just aren’t good enough for mental illness,” he said. “We have to improve the actual state of the art.”

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