ПСИХОЛОГІЧНИЙ ДИСТРЕС ПЕРЕЖИВАННЯ ДЕВ’ЯТИ МІСЯЦІВ ВІЙНИ ЦИВІЛЬНИМ НАСЕЛЕННЯМ УКРАЇНИ

Abstract

The study focuses on peculiarities of war experiencing and war-related psychological distress among civilians during the ninth month of Russia's fullscale invasion of Ukraine. War experiencing, fears and individual attitudes towards war was analysed on the basis of the answers given by 267 respondents (66 men and 204 women, aged 17-24) to the War Experience Questionnaire (M. Klimanska, I. Haletska), the War-related Psychological Distress Scale (I .Haletska, M. Klimanska; Appendix A), the Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs (Sheldon & Hilpert, 2012), Brief COPE (Carver, 1997), the Resilient Systems Scales (Maltby et al., 2017), War Anxiety Scale and War Persistent Thinking Scale (Surzykiewicz et al., 2022). War experiencing is characterized by strong belief in the victory of Ukraine. Distinctly negative attitudes by Ukrainian civilians towards Russians, the Russian language, as the aggressor's language and a motive for the start of a fullscale invasion, was formed as a result of the full-scale invasion and warfare. The structure of fears is dominated by fear for the future of Ukraine, which is twice as great as fear for one's own future. Fear for the life and health of loved ones is six times as high as the fear for one's own life and health. A high level of fatigue was found on the background of medium tension. Psychological distress directly correlated with war anxiety and war persistent thinking, emotionally-oriented coping (venting, self-blaming, turning to religion), as well as self-distraction and using the instrumental social support. Psychological distress was stronger when basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness were not met, and at the same time, the need for relatedness was better satisfied. Such controversial results can be explained by the fact that the sense of relatedness, belonging to the community in the conditions of the war for one's own independence and the independence of one's state can increase an individual's feeling of vulnerability as being a part of the country and the population under powerful brutal aggression of the enemy army. High resilience, as well as adaptive capacity, as flexible adaptation to any situation, has a preventive value in relation to war-related psychological distress.