Defense Health Care: Additional Efforts Needed to Ensure Compliance with Personality Disorder Separation Requirements

At the Department of Defense (DoD), a personality disorder can render a service member unsuitable for service. GAO was required to report on personality disorder separations with regard to the following: (1) the extent to which selected military installations complied with DoD's separation requirements, and (2) how DoD ensures compliance with these requirements. GAO reviewed a sample of 312 service members' records from four installations, representing the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, that had the highest or second highest number of Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom service members separated because of a personality disorder. The review is generalizable to the installations, but not to the services. GAO also reviewed 59 Navy service members' records, but this review is not generalizable to the installation or the Navy because parts of the separation process could have been completed at multiple locations. GAO recommends that DoD do the following: (1) ensure that the services' personality disorder separations comply with DoD's requirements, and (2) monitor the services' compliance. DoD concurred with GAO's first recommendation and partially concurred with the other. DoD stated that it will strengthen policy guidance for the services' compliance reporting, but stated that it is the responsibility of the services to ensure compliance. Report to Congressional Addressees.