Accidents and Sleepiness in a Military Setting

Abstract

s -25th Nordic Congress on Military Medicineprior to the time of actual conscription to military service. Subjects and Methods: In the first part of the study, 457 recruits who came to do their military service in 1993 were examined; 47 of them (10.3%) failed to do their conscript service. Of the 2,402 conscripts who wished to interrupt their compulsory military service and continue conscription as civil alternative service in 1994, 24 also were studied. All 457 recruits and the 24 who went to civil service from their unit, completed the short form of the MMPI depression subscale, which consist 22 items. Results: The failure rate of the recruits was 10%; the reasons for their failure were psychiatric in 81% and somatic in 19%. Of the 22 items in the MMPI depression subscale, 19 were connected statistically to failure. When a recruit gave six or more risk answers, he had >8 times chance that his service would be interrupted. The depression status of those who applied to civil service resembled that of those whose service was interrupted due medical reasons. The civil servists were even more depressed than were those who failed. Conclusion: This study emphasizes the importance of adequate classification of fitness for service. The better the classification, the less the rate of failure, the less individual suffering, and the less the waste of training capacity. It is better to both the conscript and the military to exempt unsuitable men from military service.