engleski

Croatian War Veterans Quality of Life: The Impact of Lifetime Traumatic Experiences, Psychological and Health-Related Characteristics

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the cross-sectional differences in self-reported severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psychosomatic symptoms, life-time exposure to traumatic events, coping styles, personality traits and overall quality of life between the PTSD and non-PTSD Croatian War veterans. We also investigated whether it is possible to predict quality of life on the basis of PTSD and psychosomatic symptoms, coping styles and personality traits. Results showed that veterans with PTSD judged not only combat experiences, but also exposure to other life-time traumatic events as extremely stressful, much more so than veterans without PTSD or control subjects. In comparison with control subjects, veterans with PTSD were more likely to have clinically significant symptoms of PTSD, less likely to actively and emotionally cope with stressful life-time events, and more likely to avoid facing stressful events. Scores among the non-PTSD veterans were similar to the control subjects, except on the M-PTSD scale, scale of psychosomatic symptoms and coping by avoidance, whereby non-PTSD veterans consistently scored lower than control subjects. The level of intensity of PTSD symptoms, active coping and extraversion were shown to be significant predictors of the quality of life.

war veterans; quality of life; traumatic experience; psychological characteristic

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