The Mental Health Status Of Recruits Before And After Basic Military Training And The Relations With Military Training Injuries

The psychological predisposition of army man was one of the fundamental elements of war force. More and more attentions were paid for the effects of mental health bring to health and diseases. So care for recruits in body, psychological and social adaptation can not only make their psychological predisposition better but also reduce the rate of military training injuries (MTI) by psychological intervention. There were some cross-section investigations about mental health of recruits, but there were few investigations as to compare recruits' mental health status before and after basic military training. Also there was little report on recruits' psychological characteristic change after MTI. This year is the first year of putting the ?outline of military training and test of army }>into practice. We chose the Symptom Checklist 90(SCL-90) and Esyenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) as a tool to evaluate the mental health status of recruits from a certain unit during their basic military training in 2002 as a follow up study. In our study, we investigate the changes of recruits' mental health status and analysis the relationship between psychological factors and MTI, relationship between personality and MTI. Our research could provide clue to psychological education and psychological intervention for recruits to reduce the rate of MTI. Method Questionnaires contain SCL-90 and EPQ were used to investigate the recruits-4-before and after their basic military training. MTI diagnosis was made according to the {standard of military training injure diagnosis and classification )) by specialist doctor during basic military training.Results ?The .results of SCL-90 indexes as following. Before basic military training SCL-90 average total score of recruits was 125.28 ?2.32, recruits from countryside have got significant ( P<0. 05) higher scores in obsession and psychosis than those from city .Recruits from one-child family got significant higher (P<0. 01) scores in hostility than those from more than two children family. There did not find significant relationship between recruits' educational level and their SCL-90 indexes. In this investigation we found that there were 13.45% recruits have some psychological problems, the most frequency positive answered items were relations with others, obsession and anxiety. While after basic military training SCL-90 average total score of recruits was 111.05 ?7.32 and indexes of SCL-90 scores were decreased. Recruits with high educational level (accept more than 12-years of education) got significant (P<0. 01) higher scores in depression and paranoia than those got less education. Recruits from one-child family got significant higher (P<0. 01) scores in bodied symptom, depression and paranoia than those from more than two children family. There were no significant differences of SCL-90 index scores between recruits form country and those from city. And we found that there was 6.5% recruits have got some psychological problems, this rate was significant (P<0. 01) lower than that of recruits before basic military training. The most frequency positive answered items were obsession, bodied symptom and anxiety items. (2) Results of EPQ : Before and after basic military training the scores of E value changed little, recruits form city got significant higher (P<0. 01) E scores than those from countryside, recruits with high educational level got significant (P<0. 01) higher E scores than those got less-5-education, recruits from one-child family got significant higher (P<0. 01) E scores than those from more than two children family. N scores of recruits were significantly (P<0. 01) decreased after basic military training. Lie scores of recruits were significantly (P<0. 05) increased after basic military training. And this trend could be found in all groups. (3) The step by step logistic regression to analysis the factors effect the status of recruits mental health showed that N scores were related with all factors of SCL-90(regression coefficient 0.013-0.025).Lie sco...