Coping with life-threatening events was associated with better self-perceived health in a naval cross-sectional study

We studied the relationship between experiencing and coping with life-threatening events and self-perceived health in navy personnel operating mainly under peaceful circumstances.

The data were collected in a cross-sectional study from a questionnaire sent by mail at the end of 2002 to all employees in the Royal Norwegian Navy (N=3878) as part of a general health study. Both military and civilian personnel with different types of work on ships and ashore participated in the study. Logistic regression analyses were performed to study the relationship between the number of life-threatening events, occupational status, sex, age, and the extent of putting these events behind. The possible trends between the degree of putting the events behind and each of the eight SF-36 scales were calculated by bivariate correlations.

Military personnel had experienced life-threatening events more often than civilians, but the military personnel appeared 5.5 times more likely to have put such events behind themselves than the civilians. The extent of having put life-threatening events behind oneself was clearly correlated to self-perceived health as measured by the SF-36 subscales bodily pain, general health, vitality, social functioning, role-emotional, and mental health. These associations had linear appearances.

Navy personnel who have experienced a life-threatening event and have not been able to put this event behind them are more likely to report a reduced self-perceived health.