Influence of personal and environmental factors on mental health in a sample of Austrian survivors of World War II with regard to PTSD: is it resilience?

BMC Psychiatry

Research Article

Tobias M Glück¹  Ulrich S Tran¹  Brigitte Lueger-Schuster¹ 

[1] Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, A-1010, Vienna, Austria;

关键词: Ptsd Symptom;    Traumatic Experience;    MMSE Score;    Voluntary Work;    Child Soldier;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-244X-13-47

 received in 2012-09-10, accepted in 2013-01-31,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundWar-related traumata in childhood and young-adulthood may have long-lasting negative effects on mental health. The focus of recent research has shifted to examine positive adaption despite traumatic experiences, i.e. resilience. We investigated personal and environmental factors associated with resilience in a sample of elderly Austrians (N = 293) who reported traumatic experiences in early life during World War II and subsequent occupation (1945–1955).MethodsAfter reviewing different concepts of resilience, we analysed our data in a 3-phased approach: Following previous research approaches, we first investigated correlates of PTSD and non-PTSD. Secondly, we compared a PTSD positive sample (sub-threshold and full PTSD, n = 42) with a matched control sample regarding correlates of resilience and psychometrically assessed resilience (CD-RISC). Thirdly, we examined factors of resilience, discriminating between psychologically healthy participants who were exposed to a specific environmental stressor (having lived in the Soviet zone of occupation during 1945–1955) from those who were not.ResultsA smaller number of life-time traumata (OR = 0.73) and a medium level of education (OR = 2.46) were associated with better outcome. Matched PTSD and non-PTSD participants differed in psychometrically assessed resilience mainly in aspects that were directly related to symptoms of PTSD. Psychologically healthy participants with an environmental stressor in the past were characterized by a challenge-oriented and humorous attitude towards stress.ConclusionsOur results show no clear picture of factors constituting resilience. Instead, most aspects of resilience rather appeared to be concomitants or consequences of PTSD and non-PTSD. However, special attention should be placed on a challenge-oriented and humorous attitude towards stress in future definitions of resilience.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Tran et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.