Mental disorders by draftees and soldiers at the military service

• Main Author: Miloš Židanik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Slovenian Psychologists' Association 2003-06-01
• Series: Psihološka Obzorja
• Subjects: psychiatry; military service; adjustment disorder; personality disorders; screening; psychology
• Online Access: http://psiholoska-obzorja.si/arhiv_clanki/2003_2/zidanik.pdf

The army training presents a very stressful life event that may lead to several mental disorders. Therefore it is important to establish good screening methods to identify people that are prone to propulsive reactions and autoaggressive behaviour. I have analysed the data from the sample of 1032 draftees from the Maribor's county in regard of different mental disorders that were established by the screening and examinations of our health care professionals. Besides I have analysed the data from 71 soldiers that were already serving the military service and were urgently send to the psychiatric ambulatory care unit because of different mental health problems. Between all draftees there were only 471 (45,6 %) fully capable for military duty, 180 were partially capable and from them only 5 because of mental health problems, 164 were temporary rejected for the army service and from them 43 because of mental health problems and 97 were rejected, 72 of them because of different mental disorders. The most frequent reason for rejection or limitation of the capability for military service were personality disorders in 56,7 % of cases. In the sample of soldiers already on duty the frequency of personality disorders was even higher, 74,6 %. From this sample the most frequent personality disorder was dissocial (41,5 %). Therefore we should add the inventory for personality disorders assessment to the psychological screening of draftees.