engleski

Combat Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Croatian Veterans: The Causal Models of Symptom Clusters

Objective: This study investigated the etiological roles of premilitary risk factors, military entry conditions, war zone experiences, dissociative reactiones, and homecoming reception in the development of chronic posttraumatic stress disorder symptom clusters among Croatian veterans. Methods: 150 Croatian ear veterans with the diagnosis of chronic combat-related PTSD, who sought treatment at Psychiatric Clinic osijek, Croatia, and who provided complete data, were selected as the sample for this study from the treatment-seeking group of the ex-soldier populations (N=192). structural equation modeling was used to develop an etiological model of relationships of premilitary risk factors, military entry conditions, war zone experiences, dissociative reactions, and homecoming reception with current PTSD symptom clusters. Results: The causal models with satisfactory fit and parasimony were developed. The result analysis suggests that there is a different etiological effect of studied variables on PTSD symptom clusters in all three studied models. War zone experiences, peritraumatic dissociation and homecoming reception have higher and primary etiological effect in relation to lower and secondary etiological effect of premilitary risk factors and militarx entry conditions in all three studied models. The exception is something higher etiological effect of premilitary risk factors in causal model for avoidance symptom cluster and military entry conditions in causal model for arousal cluster. Conclusions: the results may support study hypothesis that all PTSD symptoms do not have the same etiology and that different hierarchy of etiological influence exists among studied variables in all three contructed models of PTSD symptom clusters.

combat-related PTSD; causal model

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