[Contribution of anthropologic research to psychiatry]

Antropologic research comprises the analysis of numerous factors (geographic, lifestyle, model of family life, nutrition, etc.) which by their interaction have influence on human behaviour which is manifested not only in everyday life but having also characteristic forms in the disease and in attitudes toward pathologic changes. The military environment by its specific structure and regional involvement enables antropologic studies since soldiers in demanding military environment, which differs from their previous way of living, react, beside other, under effects of socio-cultural factors of the environment they are coming from. The pilot study of soldiers with psychic crises, hospitalized within 1986-1987 at the Psychiatric Department of the Zagreb Military Hospital has confirmed that soldiers with different socio-cultural characteristics react in the same military environment by different psychopathologic changes which is a challenge for further studies which would contribute to better understanding of some phenomena in behaviour, especially in some characteristic groups, e.g. adolescents, migrants, etc.