ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
This article is part of the Research TopicEnhancing Resilience in Military Personnel: Insights into Physiological, Physical, Psychological DimensionsView all 10 articles
Development of a military mental health training program aiming to promote mental health and operational readiness in the Danish armed forces: An intervention mapping approach
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of military psychology, Veteran Centre, Denmark, Karup, Denmark
- 2Department of Psychology, Kobenhavns Universitet, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 3Syddansk Universitet, Odense, Denmark
- 4Hvidovre Hospital Klinisk Forskningsafdeling, Hvidovre, Denmark
- 5The Veterans centre, Ringsted, Denmark
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Mental health and operational readiness are essential to soldiers' ability to perform under pressure. Yet within military systems, the mental domain has often been overlooked or insufficiently integrated into formal training structures (Bonner & Ellender, 2022). Although international programs have aimed to enhance mental health literacy and resilience among service members, evidence regarding their applicability across national contexts remains limited. This is the first comprehensive mental health training program that has been developed or evaluated in Denmark. This paper addresses that gap by outlining the development of Military Mental Training, the first tailored program designed to promote mental health and psychological stress management skills and long-term operational effectiveness among personnel. We used the Intervention Mapping framework to construct the program. This involved a systematic six-step process, including stakeholder input, needs assessment, performance and change objectives, and evidence-based components such as stress management techniques and psychoeducation components about stress, mental health and coping. The program offers a contextually adapted, theory-driven approach to strengthening soldiers' mental health literacy and coping capacities from the earliest stages of military training that move beyond implicit assumptions and toward structured, culturally adapted and theory-informed approaches. As such, this paper offers a replicable roadmap for other Defense organizations seeking to embed psychological readiness more explicitly into core training structures. However, further research is needed to assess results of the program in terms of acceptability, feasibility, and long-term effectiveness in real-world military settings. Beyond its military application, the training provides soldiers with transferable skills for managing stress in both service and civilian life.
Keywords: Mental health literacy, Mental health training, Operational stress, Operational readiness, Intervention mapping
Received: 19 Aug 2025; Accepted: 28 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kjærgaard, Karstoft, Wassar and Schmidt. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Anders Kjærgaard, psykc@outlook.dk
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