The BA02 Story. Sources and methods concerning military veterans long term health

The pilot study "The story of BA02. Source material and methods to study BA02 veterans mental and physical health" that is presented in this report is a historic study performed by the Swedish defence research agency (FOI), commissioned by the Armed Forces veteran division, where historic accounts have been identified and evaluated. The aim of this project is that the results presented here will be used for developing methods for future studies of past international missions. In answering the main question of the study: "What is the mental and physical health of the Swedish BA02-military veterans?" FOI has attempted to include a broad and partly unknown source material. The description of the task was: ? General identification and evaluation of source material relevant from BA02. What information is present in the material and how can it be utilized? ? Methodological aspects on what the source material contains and how it can be used (as part of developing a methodology for evaluating mental and physical health). ? Suggestion for design of survey study. The overarching question on how the military veterans mental and physical well-being is at present cannot be answered fully by a review of the source material studies here. The studies on BA02 are based on archive 270 The Bosnian battalions that are kept at the Military Archives of Sweden, military memory books, final reports and diaries present in the Internet. Together with earlier research in the Bosnian battalions, a picture emerges that shows that the battalion is doing well at the time of the mission. There is however information in the material that suggests that there are factors present that could have affected the staff in a negative way. These factors are large personnel shifts; insufficient staff in the medical division; lacking proper preparatory training; lack of reunions within the battalion; and a number of incidents indicating lack of leadership and unit cohesion. The ad hoc decision to transfer the 7. Infantry troop from Macedonia to the considerably more dangerous Bosnia is one clear example of how the health of the staff was affected negatively by evoking feelings of powerlessness and the responses of the staffs' family back in Sweden. The source material also indicates deficits in support systems: no reunion has been organised for the battalion; more comprehensive data on the content and extent of the preparatory training is lacking but it is clear that whatever was provided was not perceived as sufficient. Information on support once the veterans returned home has also not been identified, a result that raises the question on how extensive this support was. That material has not been identified does not mean however that it does not exist - files relevant for archive 270 at the Military Archives could have been misplaced or never transferred there at all. Documentation in medical records contains no information on mental health or documentation on traumatic experiences. However, the medical documents reveal that the physical health of the staff seems to have been good before and after the mission. The only support system for psychological strain that can be found in the documents is spontaneous visits by the battalions' priest. This report shows that continued studies to answer the overarching question are needed on how BA02 military veteran's health is today, almost twenty years after the mission in Bosnia. The study here indicates that both interview as well as survey studies are needed, and that relevant databases should be consulted. The survey study should focus on how the veterans are doing today, but also why they feel the way they do. Regarding the veterans current mental and physical state, it would be beneficial to use a standardized form or scale. The member states of NORDEFCO recently agreed on a survey tool for this purpose. To investigate how veterans are doing today additional issues need to be included, such as exposure for traumatic events, work related injuries, unit cohesion and leadership, and meaningfulness of tasks. Also, the survey needs to include items that measure the function of support systems as well as the role of family. Future studies should also be inspired by the Danish study "Homecoming soldiers" and the work done with military veterans within NORDEFCO. An in-depth interview with the head of the battalion, the Armed forces head psychologist and some officers and privates, in combination with a scrutiny of work related injuries, would also aid in giving a more comprehensive picture of the mental health of BA02 veterans.