Psychiatric evaluation of self-referred and non-self-referred active duty military members.

This study examined 300 cases of active duty Air Force members seen in an Air Force medical center outpatient mental health clinic over a 1-year period. Comparisons were made between self-referred and non-self-referred (commander-directed) patients across several areas, including chief complaints/referral reasons, diagnoses, personality features, dispositions, and numbers of therapy sessions. Results showed significantly different distributions of types of chief complaints, dispositions, and treatment sessions between the two groups, and provided relative proportions of personality types distributed within each group. The dual roles of the military mental health practitioner, as provider for both the organization and the patient, are discussed.