Psychosomatic Manifestations of Military Psychotrauma

Abstract

Introduction. War is a super-powerful extreme event that causes adaptive capacity to decline. The need for a clearer understanding of the specifics of war psychotrauma and its clinical consequences for all components of human health determines the relevance of the topic of this study.
 The aim of the work is to study the peculiarities of psychosomatic relationships in persons with the consequences of war psychotrauma.
 Materials and methods. The experimental study group consisted of 32 patients from the number of temporarily displaced persons, the control group – 34 patients who did not change their place of residence during the entire period of the full-scale war. The diagnosis was aimed at identifying neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders, according to the rubric (F40-F48) of the ICD-10. Assessment of the somatic condition was carried out on the basis of analysis of anamnestic data, clinical examination of the patient and indicators of laboratory tests. Psychodiagnostic methods were used to assess the mental states of patients (Clinical Questionnaire for the Detection and Assessment of Neurotic States; Methodology for the express diagnosis of neurosis by K. Heck and H. Hess; Questionnaire SAN (Mood, Activity, Mood); Methodology for the diagnosis of Taylor's anxiety level; Self-assessment of mental states according to Eysenck; Ch. Spibleger's Reactive and Personal Anxiety Assessment Scale in the modification of Y. Hanin. Statistical processing of the research results was carried out in the Microsoft Excel program and with the help of the Social Science Statistics online calculator.
 Results. As a result of the analysis of anamnestic data, clinical examination and analysis of laboratory tests, psychosomatic disorders were found in patients of both research groups: in 29 (90.63%) patients of the experimental group and in 26 (74.47%) patients of the control group.
 Conclusions. It has been confirmed that a prolonged stressful extreme situation of a full-scale war causes the formation of negative mental states accompanied by psychosomatic manifestations, the formation of a closed vicious circle of a pathological psychosomatic process. A high close direct correlation was found between the level of reactive anxiety, autonomic disorders, well-being, activity, mood of patients and psychosomatic symptoms. The absence of a statistically significant difference in the risk of developing psychosomatic disorders as a result of war psychotrauma in temporarily displaced persons and those who did not change their place of residence was revealed.