Spiritual Well-Being, Cortisol, and Suicidality in Croatian War Veterans Suffering from PTSD

Mihaljević, Sanea; Vuksan-Ćusa, Bjanka; Marčinko, Darko; Koić, Elvira; Kušević, Zorana; Jakovljević, Miro

doi:10.1007/s10943-010-9383-2

Cited by 25 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Constructs related to positive religious coping—spiritual well‐being or religious comfort—were also explored. Variables from this category were found to be linked with lower levels of substance use (Staton‐Tindall, Duvall, Stevens‐Watkins, & Oser, ), cortisol levels (Mihaljević et al, ), lifetime PTSD, depression and alcohol use (Ganocy et al, ), and PTSD symptoms (Harris et al, ). No significant association with depression and suicidality was found in Rosellini et al () ans with the PTSD symptoms in McCann and Webb ().…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religiosity and the psychological outcomes of trauma: A systematic review of quantitative studies

Kucharska

2019

J Clin Psychol

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Objective This is a broad review examining the relationships between religiosity and the psychological outcomes of trauma. Previous studies showed that some constructs of religiosity are associated with lower severity of symptoms of mental disorders, whereas others, for instance, negative religious coping, predict deteriorated mental health. Method A systematic review of peer‐reviewed quantitative studies was conducted to examine the patterns of relationships between religiosity and psychological outcomes of trauma, potential causal relationships, and specific effect of religiosity on the outcomes on trauma. Results A total of 79 quantitative studies were included. The majority focused on military trauma or various types of traumatic exposure in the general population. Most of the studies employed a cross‐sectional design. Conclusions The associations between religiosity and psychological outcomes of trauma depend on the concept of religion used in a study, type of trauma. There is not enough evidence to support the causal effect of religiosity.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religiosity and the psychological outcomes of trauma: A systematic review of quantitative studies

Kucharska

2019

J Clin Psychol

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“…In 2011, the Department of Defense (DoD) Health Related Behaviors Survey of Active Duty Military Personnel (Barlas et al, 2011) assessed spirituality with two questions and found that low spirituality was more often associated with heavy drinking and higher levels of depression and suicidal ideation. In a small pilot study of Croatian war veterans with PTSD, the relationship between suicidality, blood cortisol levels, and spirituality was examined using the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) and the Beck Hopelessness Scale; higher spiritual well-being (SWB) scores correlated with lower cortisol levels and with lower suicide risk (Mihaljevic et al, 2011). Other authors (Tsuang et al, 2002) also used the SWBS, investigating 100 twin pairs from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry, and found that both the existential well-being (EWB) and the religious well-being (RWB) subscales of SWBS were significantly inversely associated with alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence.…”

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confidence: 99%

Association of Spirituality With Mental Health Conditions in Ohio National Guard Soldiers

Ganocy¹,

Goto²,

Chan³

et al. 2016

J Nerv Ment Dis

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Research exploring spirituality in military populations is a relatively new field with limited published reports. This study used the Spiritual Well-Being Scale to examine the association of spiritual well-being with suicidal ideation/behavior, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression and alcohol use disorders in a randomized sample of Ohio Army National Guard soldiers. The participants were 418 soldiers, mostly white and male, with nearly three-quarters indicating that they had been deployed at least once during their careers. Higher spirituality, especially in the existential well-being subscale, was associated with significantly less lifetime PTSD, depression, and alcohol use disorders and with less suicidal ideation over the past year. Future research in this area may benefit from a longitudinal design that can assess spirituality and mental health behaviors in addition to diagnoses at different time points, to begin to explore spirituality in a larger context.

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“…The most commonly used stress biomarker is cortisol [6][7]. To date, much of the research that has utilized cortisol levels to evaluate wartime stress has focused on either acute battle-related stress and soldiers' experiences [8][9], or on the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in severely traumatized victims [10][11][12][13]. Less research has been conducted on the use of cortisol levels to assess the stress of war in people who were non-combatants and those who were not directly victimized.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hair Cortisol as a Biomarker of Stress in the 2011 Libyan War

Etwel¹,

Russell²,

Rieder³

et al. 2014

CIM

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Purpose: There is a substantial body of research that utilizes saliva cortisol levels to examine wartime stress; however, there is a paucity of literature that utilizes hair cortisol levels, which allows for long-term assessment of chronic stress, to investigate the stress of war. The present study aimed to evaluate changes in hair cortisol concentrations before, during, and after the 2011 Libyan war.Methods: This study examined hair cortisol concentrations of young adult women who were living in Tripoli, Libya during the 2011 war. The participants were recruited at the campus of Tripoli University. Participants needed to have at least 24 cm of hair and to have resided in Tripoli before, during and after the 2011 Libyan war. Hair was sectioned to reflect 3 month windows of cortisol exposure corresponding to periods before, during and after the war. Hair cortisol concentrations were quantified using a modified salivary ELISA test. The women were also asked to complete the Perceived Stress Scale pertaining to the post-war period.Results: Median hair cortisol concentrations in the post-war period (226.11 ng/g; range 122.95-519.85 ng/g) were significantly higher than both the pre-war (180.07 ng/g; 47.13-937.85 ng/g) and wartime (186.65 ng/g; 62.97-771.79 ng/g) periods (P<0.05). The mean PSS score (24) was in the range of "much higher than the mean" for this test and the vast majority of participants were either in the "much higher than the mean" or "slightly higher than the mean" ranges. Hair cortisol determination suggests that in Tripoli, the post-war period appears to have been more stressful than the war itself. This is consistent with the fact that during the war the civilian participants were not directly involved with warfare, nor were they targeted by the international coalition fighting Gaddafi. In contrast, the post-war period was characterized by chaos and total lack of authority, with the participants exposed to injury, lack of food and destruction.Conclusion: This study documents the utility of hair cortisol levels to retrospectively assess stress before, during, and after an armed conflict.

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Spiritual Well-Being, Cortisol, and Suicidality in Croatian War Veterans Suffering from PTSD

Cited by 25 publications

References 33 publications

Religiosity and the psychological outcomes of trauma: A systematic review of quantitative studies

Religiosity and the psychological outcomes of trauma: A systematic review of quantitative studies

Association of Spirituality With Mental Health Conditions in Ohio National Guard Soldiers

Hair Cortisol as a Biomarker of Stress in the 2011 Libyan War

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