http://www.npr.org/2010/12/04/131797071/study-female-vets-especially-vulnerable-to-suicide - NPR
The journal Psychiatric Services published this week the first large-scale study of suicide among female veterans. To do the study, Portland State University researcher Mark Kaplan collected information about all the female deaths by suicide in 16 states.
He then compared the rate of suicide among female veterans to the rate of suicide among female civilians, and found that in general female vets are much more likely to commit suicide than their civilian peers, especially, Kaplan says, younger vets.
"Female veterans — age 18 to 34 — are three times as likely as their civilian peers to die by suicide," he said.
Kemp, the director of the Suicide Hotline, agrees with Kaplan. And though she says the underlying problems of adjustment and PTSD are similar for both men and women, there are some differences. Many of the women who call her hotline, she says, are struggling to deal with military rapes they experienced during their deployments. And the women who call, Kemp says, talk much more about their children.