Mental disorders pattern in staff of a military unit in Iran: the role of metabolic syndrome on latent class membership.

INTRODUCTION: Mental disorders are among the most prevalent health problems of the adult population in the world. This study aimed to identify the subgroups of staff based on mental disorders and assess the independent role of metabolic syndrome (MetS) on the membership of participants in each latent class. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 694 staff of a military unit in Tehran in 2017. All staff of this military unit was invited to participate in this study. The collected data included demographic characteristics, anthropometric measures, blood pressure, biochemical parameters, and mental disorders. We performed latent class analysis using a procedure for latent class analysis (PROC LCA) in SAS to identify class membership of mental disorders using Symptom Checklist-90. RESULTS: Three latent classes were identified as healthy (92.7%), mild (4.9%), and severe (2.4%) mental disorders. Having higher age significantly decreased the odds of belonging to the mild class (adjusted OR (aOR = 0.21; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.05-0.83) compared to the healthy class. Also, obesity decreased the odds of membership in mild class (aOR = 0.10, 95% CI: 0.01-0.92) compared to healthy class. On the other hand, being female increased the odds of being in severe class (aOR = 9.76; 95% CI: 1.35-70.65) class in comparison to healthy class. CONCLUSION: This study revealed that 7.3% of staff fell under mild and severe classes. Considering educational workshops in the workplace about mental disorders could be effective in enhancing staff's knowledge of these disorders. Also, treatment of comorbid mental disorders may help reduce their prevalence and comorbidity.

COVID-19 Outbreak in a Military Unit in Korea.

OBJECTIVES: This study presents the response of a military unit to the COVID-19 outbreak in Gyeonggi Province. As soon as two soldiers were identified as index cases, the infectious disease investigators of the Gyeonggi Provincial Government, Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and the Armed Forces Epidemiologic Investigation Center, discussed the investigation and response plan for an imminent massive outbreak. METHODS: The joint immediate response team (IRT) conducted interviews with confirmed patients with COVID-19, reviewed medical records, performed contact tracing using global positioning system (GPS), and undertook a field investigation. For risk assessment, the joint IRT visited all eight sites of the military units and the army chaplain's church to evaluate the transmission risk of each site. The evaluation items included the size of the site, the use of air conditioning, whether windows were opened, and whether masks were worn. A pooled testing was used for a low-risk population to quickly detect the spread of COVID-19 in the military base. RESULTS: A day before the symptom onset of the index case, the lecturer and >50% of the attendees were infected with COVID-19 while attending a lecture that lasted 2 h and 30 min. Attendees were not wearing masks and were in a poorly ventilated room. CONCLUSION: Since the disease can be spread before symptom onset, contact tracing must be performed to investigate potential exposures prior to symptom onset and manage any exposed persons.

An examination of department of defense environmental factors that contribute to reporting sexual harassment.

This study examined the influence of inclusion on the relationship between unwanted workplace experiences (UWEs) and negative perceptions of the sexual harassment reporting climate (NPRC) among 77 United States military units. De-identified archival data from the Department of Defense's Defense Organizational Climate Survey (DEOCS) were analyzed. Results show that, while perceptions of inclusion did not moderate the relationship between UWEs and NPRC, it did predict NPRC. Our research reveals that the more inclusive a unit is, the more likely members in that unit will have positive perceptions of the sexual harassment reporting climate. Additionally, unit group cohesion (GC) levels were found to positively predict levels of inclusion among units. Implications regarding the implementation of more team-building exercises to both raise GC and perceptions of inclusion - as a potential way for military units to improve sexual harassment reporting climate - are discussed.

The Statistical Observation of Ocular Injury in the Military

PURPOSE: We investigated the clinical characteristics of ocular trauma in the military for prevention and treatment application. METHODS: We retrospectively surveyed epidemiologic characteristics by investigating the medical records of 790 patients who were hospitalized in the Armed Forces Capital Hospital from January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2010 and investigated the prognostic factors that influenced visual outcome. RESULTS: Among the 790 patients with ocular trauma, 22.9% of the patients had an open injury and 77.1% had a closed injury. The most common cause of injury was sports-related ocular trauma (39%) and fatigue duty-related trauma (23.4%). The following 8 risk factors were considered poor prognostic factors: open injury, involved posterior segment, operation, initial visual acuity of 0.1 or less, corneal laceration, hyphema, RD, and intraocular foreign body. There was a significant correlation between the probability of poor visual outcome and the number of risk factors (correlation coefficient = -0.468, p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: In the present study, the cause, characteristics and prognostic factor of military personnel's ocular injury were determined. The results can be useful in the prevention and management of ocular injury in the military.