WASHINGTON–The Army Resilience Directorate presented a new visibility tool at the annual Association of the U.S. Army meeting Oct. 13 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The Behavioral Health Pulse tool was presented during the meeting’s Warrior’s Corner.
BH Pulse is a survey tool that Behavioral Health Officers use to provide commanders with an assessment of behavioral health stressors across their formations, helping commanders to better understand risk factors in their units and to develop a plan for intervention. It consists of a survey, a manual for administering the survey, and a quick reference guide.
“This capability has been in the Force for some time now," said, Col. Matt Weber, Chief, Ready and Resilient Division, but we have made it more useable for commanders to enable them to really pulse their formations to get a better sense of what's going on.”
The BH Pulse, formerly known as the Unit Needs Assessment, was developed at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, in conjunction with psychiatrists from the Office of the Surgeon General.
“The BH Pulse is a 15–20-minute survey that is anonymous,” said Dr. Jim Anderson, Research Scientist. “It’s offered through web/mobile or paper/pencil and is retained at brigade level and distributed at company level and requires a participation rate of 70% of the company in order to process the individual surveys.”
“BH Pulse facilitates the analysis of behavioral health (suicidality, depression, anxiety, PTSD), work environment, social relationships, deployments, sexual harassment and sexual assault, interpersonal violence, and other behaviors such as sleep, alcohol use, and unsafe driving,” according to Jennifer Phillips, Senior Scientist.
Information gathered from the BH Pulse is used to improve communication, recommend appropriate interventions, target prevention activities, develop risk-reduction strategies, and monitor progress of improvement actions.
The BH Pulse survey will be one more tool helping Army leaders better understand the overall behavioral health of their units to make changes and implement programs to help service members.
ARD also participated in another Warrior’s Corner presentation on Oct. 11 entitled “Call to Action: Reducing Suicide in Army Formations.”
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