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U.S. Coast Guard (CG) personnel face occupational stressors (e.g., search and rescue) which compound daily life stressors encountered by civilians. However, the degree CG personnel express stress-related mental health symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) is understudied as a military branch, and little is known concerning the interplay of vulnerabilities and neurocognitive outcomes in CG personnel. The current study addressed this knowledge gap, recruiting 241 active duty CG personnel (22% female) to assess mental health, personality, and neurocognitive function. Participants completed a battery of scales: PTSD Checklist with military and non-military prompts to screen for PTSD, Psychological Health Questionnaire 8 for MDD, and scales for behaviorally inhibited (BI) temperament, and distressed (Type D) personality. Neurocognitive performance was assessed with the Defense Automated Neurobehavioral Assessment (DANA) battery. Cluster scoring yielded an overall rate of PTSD of 15% (95% CI: 11–20%) and 8% (95% CI: 3–9%) for MDD. Non-military trauma was endorsed twice that of military trauma in those meeting criteria for PTSD. Individual vulnerabilities were predictive of stress-related mental health symptoms in active duty military personnel; specifically, BI temperament predicted PTSD whereas gender and Type D personality predicted MDD. Stress-related mental health symptoms were also associated with poorer reaction time and response inhibition. These results suggest rates of PTSD and MDD are comparable among CG personnel serving Boat Stations to those of larger military services after combat deployment. Further, vulnerabilities distinguished between PTSD and MDD, which have a high degree of co-occurrence in military samples. To what degree stress-related mental healthy symptoms and attendant neurocognitive deficits affect operational effectiveness remains unknown and warrant future study.

Postural control and stress reactivity were investigated in active duty coast guard personnel to determine whether they are sensitive to lifetime effects of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). A custom-designed and validated virtual reality-based computerized posturography device was used to assess postural stability, whereas emotional reactivity was assessed using the acoustic startle response (ASR), and neurocognitive performance was assessed using the defense-automated neurobehavioral assessment (DANA). It was hypothesized that residual and subtle postural control imbalance and deficits in cognitive and sensory reactivity would be evident in those reporting multiple lifetime mTBI. Active duty military personnel (N = 36; 7 females and 29 males) with no Deployment Limiting Medical Condition were recruited and tested on all assessments. Medical history information provided a history of head injury. Thirty-nine percent of participants reported having a previous mTBI (nine reporting one and five reporting more than one incident). No participant had experienced a head injury within the past year and all were symptom free. A significant effect of number of mTBI was found in the postural assessment (p = 0.002). Lifetime mTBI was associated with suppressed ASR magnitude (p = 0.03) but did not affect neurocognitive performance. The current findings provide new insight into ongoing controversies concerning sensitivity to functional deficits following mTBI and when the window for treatment or restoration ends.

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