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Letter
Concerns about the future linked with poor sleep quality in US army special operations soldiers withdrawing from Afghanistan
  1. Janna Mantua1,
  2. S A Symonette2,
  3. H P Eldringhoff1,
  4. G A Overman1 and
  5. S Chaudhury1
  1. 1 Operational Research Team, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
  2. 2 United States Army Special Operations Command, Ft. Benning, Georgia, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Janna Mantua, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, USA; janna.mantua{at}gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjmilitary-2022-002143

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    Dear Editor,

    Understanding how policy changes, such as a drawdown from a major military campaign, impact service members can provide information on how best to preserve service member health and resilience during these events. US special operations forces (SOF) units served in Afghanistan continually from September 2001 until the US drawdown in 2020/2021. Due to the unprecedented nature of a drawdown and a lack of research during times of military transition, it was unclear how members of these units felt during this event. It was also unclear how their attitudes about the drawdown were related to health outcomes, such as sleep. Sleep is critical for the maintenance of health and resilience in SOF populations, but it is acutely impacted by psychological distress.1–3 We hypothesised that soldiers with relatively negative attitudes about the drawdown would be sleeping …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors JM, SAS and SC conceived and designed the study. JM and SAS contributed to data acquisition. All authors contributed to data analysis and interpretation. JM and SC wrote the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript for important intellectual content and approved the final version.

    • Funding This work was funded by the Military Operational Medicine Research Programme (WRAIR #2523).

    • Disclaimer Material has been reviewed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. There is no objection to its presentation and/or publication. The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the author, and are not to be construed as official, or as reflecting true views of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defence. The investigators have adhered to the policies for protection of human subjects as prescribed in AR 70-25.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.