Investigation On Mental Health Of Rescue Troops Three Months After Wenchuan Earthquake

Objective To investingate the mental health of the rescue troops three months after rescue action for the devastating earthquake and to explore the relationship between psychological state and personality traits, provide the basis for solving the psychological problems of rescue workers better.Methods A cross-sectional study was performed among 130 rescue soldiers and 150 soldiers who didn't have rescue mission. All the 280 soldiers were tested with Symptom Checklist - 90 (SCL-90), the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms self-rati scale.Results 1. The positive rate of SCL - 90 of the rescue team was higher than that of non-rescue team's (p<0. 05) .The factorial scores of somatization Repression, photic anxiety, psychoticism, paranoid ideation , and the total score of SCL - 90 of the rescue team were significantly higher than that of Non-rescue team (p<0. 05). 2. The positive rate of PTSD between two groups were not significantly different (p>0. 05), the re-experience factor of the rescue team was significantly higher than that of non-rescue team (p=0. 028), but the negative emotion factor was significantly lower than non-rescue team's (p=0. 034). 3. The rescue team 's factorial score of difficulty identifying emotions was significantly higher than non-rescue team's (p=0. 007) , the TAS total score, the factorial scores of difficulty describing feelings, externally-oriented thinking were not significant different (p>0. 05). 4. All factorial scores ,the total score of SCL - 90 and PTSD of the Alexithymia team were significantly higher than Non- Alexithymia team (p<0. 01). All factorial scores and the total score of SCL - 90 of the Alexithymia team were significantly higher than Non- Alexithymia team in the rescue team(p<0.01).Conclusion 1.Compare with non-rescue team, rescue team has more psychosomatic symptoms, mainly expressed in somatization,depression, photic anxiety, psychoticism , paranoid ideation and re-experience. 2. Alexithymia was correlated with the psychological status of the rescue troops.People with high alexithymic features have more psychological and post-traumatic stressful symptoms than non-alexithymias.