Statistics à la SPIEGEL ONLINE

SPIEGEL ONLINE's high quality staff has produced another top article on America's invasion of Iraq:

Consequences of the war: One third of GI's suffering from psychological problems

(...) almost every third US soldier returning from Iraq has considerable psychological problems because of the situations encountered ...

Hmm... one third... That's about 33 %, right?

Ok, here's the study SPIEGEL ONLINE refers to:

We studied members of four U.S. combat infantry units (three Army units and one Marine Corps unit) using an anonymous survey that was administered to the subjects either before their deployment to Iraq (n=2530) or three to four months after their return from combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan (n=3671). ... Exposure to combat was significantly greater among those who were deployed to Iraq than among those deployed to Afghanistan. The percentage of study subjects whose responses met the screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety, or PTSD was significantly higher after duty in Iraq (15.6 to 17.1 percent) than after duty in Afghanistan (11.2 percent) or before deployment to Iraq (9.3 percent) ...

So: the maximum percentage of major depression among US soldiers after serving in Iraq is 17.1. Also, before deployment to Iraq, 9.3 percent already suffered from psychological problems. Therefore, only about 8 % acquired some sort of depression possibly as a result of the Iraq war. Now that's not "a third" by any definition, according to my basic math knowledge.

This just in: severe cases of depression and mental disorder detected among journalists of a well known German left-left wing online journal. In its final stages the illness leads to senseless Bush-bashing and blind America hatred. No known cure available...

Comments

[Downer]

Off-Topic
-------------

"Krieg ist keine Geometrie"
"Blätter"-Gespräch mit William Kristol

Treibende Kraft hinter der US-Intervention im Irak waren und sind die Neokonservativen". Zu ihrem wichtigsten Sprachrohr ist die vom Medien-Mogul Rupert Murdoch finanzierte Zeitschrift The Weekly Standard" avanciert, der New York Tim es" zufolge die ein flussreichste Meinungszeitschrift im Weißen Haus". Ihr Gründer und Herausgeber ist William Kristol, Sohn des als Godfather" des amerikanischen Neokonservatismus geltenden Irving Kristol. (Zu dem engmaschigen Beziehungsgeflecht der neokonservativen Think Tanks siehe den Aufsatz von Michael Lind in Blätter" 4/2 004, 5. 42 7-438). William Kristol war sowohl Stabschef des Vizepräsidenten Dan Quayle (1989-1992) als auch des Bildungsministers William Bennett unter Präsident Ronald Reagan (1985-1988). Uber die aktuelle US-Außenpolitik sprachen mit ihm Albrecht von Lucke und Albert Scharenberg. - D. Red.

http://downer.funpic.de/kristol.htm

Sind einige Rechtschreibfehler drin, da mein Scanner so seine Probleme mit der OCR-Erkennung manchmal hat. Aber grundsätzlich habe ich mir das Magazin sowieso nur wegen diesem einen Interview von einem Kollegen ausgeliehen. Lesen lohnt sich auf jeden Fall.

[Captain America]

It would have been interesting to determine the baseline depression rate among Americans in aggregate. But, your point is well taken and fascinating.

Thanks for the fine work.

[John aus Detroit]

Es gibt so viele geheimnisgruppe, wie kann man alle sie im auge behalten? Während der Clinton regeirung, viel leute, die in "Bürgerwehr" waren, dachte die UNO unsre land gedroht (als wenn das passiert könnte). Leute sind doof. hehe

john

[Hartmut]

What sorry losers those Spiegel-lefties must be....

[Ariks]

Depression, anxiety or PTSD is a normal reaction of a human to the horror one has to witness during a war. War is ugly and brutal - nobody is denying that - even myself who supported and still support the action taken by the current US administration. These problems are known - they are however not connected exclusivly to the war in iraq but to every war. I too hope that one day there will be no need for war, however, as long as there is evil existing in the form of terror, Saddam, Iran, Arafat and others there is no way arround it. History will not end tomorrow and I doubt it will end at all.

It it important to not only support the troops while they fight but also after they are returning and providing them with all the medical and psycholocigal help they may need.

[Ariks]

And I forgot to mention, I find it disgusting that the left is exploiting this while at the same time is refusing to help them by denying them the support they'd need to overcome their problems. Shame on you Spiegel!

[Joe]

David:
This reminds me a great deal of the dissection you once did involving a media piece about the rates of suicide in the US Army and the Bundeswehr. Still have it anywhere?

Note from David: This is the link, Joe.

[unimportant]

Before giving advice of reading carefully to SPON, you should read the NEJM publication carefully by yourself. Then you would find out, that the SPON-headline is biased, but the article refers to figures which are given in the publication:
1. SPON does not say that a third of the GI's suffer from PTSD, but the take the broad definition (!) and they say that this is the estimation (!) of the scientists
2. The scientists say, that the results are "cosnservative", because of some bias in the sample:
"However, the selection procedures did not permit the enrollment of persons who had been severely wounded or those who may have been removed from the units for other reasons, such as misconduct. Thus, our estimates of the prevalence of mental disorders are conservative, reflecting the prevalence among working, nondisabled combat personnel"
At the end of the day, you could put up the question, if the article itself is biades (it definitely is). You could as well put up the question if it is NEWS AT ALL, that soldiers in the field have more mental problems than couchpotatoes or nerds in the internet ;-)
But if you want blame someone for not knowing the basic math levels, you should read more carefully.

I really miss Klink...

Note from David: Not that I miss Klink, but he would never have produced such a lousy comment. SPON reports matter-of-factly that "One third of GI's suffering from psychological problems" and refers to the Iraq war as the cause, while the study SPON refers to reports only a Iraq war based net increase of 8 % - at best - and an overall level of 17.1 %. I'm not in the business of evaluating the bias of this study (there might well be one) - I'm just pointing to the fact that SPON misrepresents the findings of the study. Difficult to grasp?

[ableiter]

You forgot to add them up. 17.1 + 9.3 + 8 = 35.4, which is close enough for a Socialist.

"Stomme kaasfrettende kotszakken!!!"
-Michael Cosyns

[unimportant]

Hello David,

your are right: Klinks comment would have been much better elaborated at this place. And in my poor english, my "biased" (the bias of the SPON-Agenda) means more or less the same to me like your "misprepresents". Therefore I don't know why to go ballisitc about this. I am with you in that point.
What I wanted to point out is, that your starting point of criticism is not correct because you compared apples with peaches - which gives the impression that your investigation is of the same quality as the SPON article is. Was this your intention (if you don't know what I mean, go on table 3 in the study) ?
I appreciate this blog because it uncovers tendentious left journalism quite well. But I don't think it is necessary to replace biased leftie comments by biased comments from the other side. You can do better.

[George M]

What is the percentage of Bundeswehr soldiers comming home depressed from Bosnia, Kosovo and Kabul. It would be interesting to compare their depression rates with the Americans ...especially where the Germans bravely endure their hardships from the comfort of their barracks.

[Pato]

Doing a "tour of duty" now in any of the three countries mentioned above would be equal to a tour of duty in Tivoli amusement Park, even IF you decided you wanted to (for odd reasons only like quelling a riot)leave the barracks.