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Almost one-third of the U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who seek services at clinics run by the Department of Veterans Affairs have mental-health or behavioral disorders, a study says.

The report was based on records covering almost 104,000 veterans. Of those, 25 percent were diagnosed with one or more mental-health conditions, and a further 6 percent had "psychosocial or behavioral problems," according to the study.

The findings suggest that psychological disorders may be one of the most enduring legacies of the almost four-year-old Iraq war, said Paul Rieckhoff, the executive director of the advocacy group, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. The organization, based in New York, wasn't involved in the study, which was published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine,

A report submitted last October to a House subcommittee on veterans' health said Vet Centers, community-based drop-in programs that offer counseling, were being taxed by the demand.

Many of the 60 centers were redirecting soldiers getting individual therapy into groups or limiting access to marriage or family therapy. One-third of the centers said they needed more staff.

"The mental-health toll of this war is tremendous and growing," said Rieckhoff, a former Army lieutenant who served in Iraq, in a phone interview Monday. "Untreated mental-health issues can lead to a predictable downward spiral: alcoholism, marital problems, drug abuse, unemployment, homelessness. It is a slippery slope."

The Bush administration "has not planned adequately for the demand" for mental-health services for veterans, Rieckhoff said. The White House press office referred a request for comment to the VA.

"We have taken—and will continue to take—steps to make certain our veterans receive comprehensive, accessible and compassionate care for their mental-health concerns," said Matt Burns, a VA spokes-man, in an e-mail Monday.

The VA has almost $3 billion in annual spending devoted to mental-health services, according to the statement, and the agency employs more than 9,000 psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers.

The new study, the largest so far on the psychological effect of those conflicts on the soldiers, produced results in line with those of smaller studies.

The researchers looked at every veteran who served in Afghanistan or Iraq and sought help at a VA clinic during a four-year period beginning about the time in 2001 that NATO forces entered Afghanistan to help topple the Taliban.

The most-common diagnosis was post-traumatic stress disorder, known as PTSD, which was seen in 13 percent of the veterans. By comparison, studies suggest that 15 percent of U.S. veterans who fought in Vietnam suffered post-traumatic stress, as do about 3.5 percent of all U.S. residents. Following PTSD in frequency for the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were anxiety, adjustment disorder, depression and substance abuse.

The rate of mental-health disorders differed little by sex or race, said the study leader, Karen Seal, a staff physician at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco. By contrast, the differences between age groups were "striking," Seal said in a March 9 phone interview.

"The youngest veterans who had been on active duty had the highest rates of mental-health diagnoses overall, and post-traumatic stress in particular," Seal said. The reason may be that soldiers aged 18 to 24 were involved more in combat than older ones, whose generally higher ranks may have kept them farther from danger, according to the study.

The numbers don't reflect all cases of mental-health disorders triggered by the wars because the figures exclude people who didn't seek government assistance, Rieckhoff said.

If a third of the 1.6 million soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan have or develop disorders, more than 500,000 veterans will need assistance, he said.