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[Life events and military service]
E Samaille1, D Servant, J M Playe
1Service de Psychiatrie Générale, C.H.R.U. Lille, USN B, 6, rue du Professeur-Laguesse, 59037 Lille.
Objective:
Life events preceding the year of enrollment in the military service were researched in 175 patients invalid out of army because of psychiatric disorders.
Method:
We assessed the diagnostic according to the DSM III-R criteria, using a semi-structured interview. We completed the evaluation with socio-demographic data. The scale for the assessment of life events was the Paykel's scale.
Results:
58% of patients fulfilled the diagnostic of adaptation disorders. The anxiety disorders (14.28%) and depressive disorders (9.71%) come after. Compared with an age and socio-demographic data matched conscript group without psychiatric disorders, it seems that the patients experienced twice as much events during the year preceding the enrollment than the control-group (respectively 6.92 and 3.65). In term of quality, the results show more events related to interpersonal conflict (inadaptation in family, affective relation or professional field). Whereas the events related to recent separation, the major events life; decrease, serious illness and the maternal loss were similar in both groups.
Conclusion:
Those data suggest that there is a relationship between excess of life events and personality disorders, which may explain the inadaptation in the military service. Some recent factors of stress could represent a risk of psychiatric disorders occurring during the military service.