Arrests, Mental Health Outcomes, and Discharge Status in U.S. Military Veterans: A Latent Class Analysis

Most U.S. military service members are discharged routinely, but about 15% receive non-routine discharges. Little is known about how patterns of arrests prior-to and in-service relate to neuropsychological symptoms acquired through military service, or how these symptoms and patterns are associated with discharge type. We investigated latent group differences in post-9/11 era veterans’ patterns of arrests; examined mental health-related predictors of subgroup membership; and modeled associations between latent class structure and non-routine discharge. Veterans with traumatic brain injury, alcohol misuse, and post-traumatic stress disorder, had greater odds of belonging to a high-risk vs. low-risk class with the highest probabilities of arrests in-service. The high-risk class had a 45% chance of non-routine discharge compared with 35% for a stable-risk class and 6% for a low-risk class. Veterans with increased probabilities of arrests in-service compared with pre-service showed the highest odds of mental and behavioral health problems and non-routine discharge.