Problems and symptoms in army basic trainees with stress-induced hypertensive reactions

Abstract

As part of a larger investigation on psychiatric and psychosomatic reactions of decompensation or inadequacy in approximately 13,000 Swedish army trainees during military basic training, characteristics were studied of private trainees from one regiment that in connection with a stress situation at induction had the highest systolic or diastolic blood pressures. No individuals with manifest hypertensive disease were included in the material. Information regarding symptomatology, social conditions and problems before and during basic training was collected by questionnaires, interviews and personality-psychological tests. Additional information was obtained from platoon commanders, the regimental physician, illness records and military registers. The group with a systolic blood pressure of 145 or higher more often reported paternal heart disease but no other parental illness. This may indicate that the measurement of systolic blood pressure in conjunction with external stress reflects a prognostically important tendency in this group, i.e. to react with an elevation of the blood pressure. The hypothesis that this group should report more problems or mental symptoms before or during basic training was not confirmed, nor was there any connection between duodenal ulcer and blood pressure level. The hypothesis that individuals with a high systolic blood pressure to a greater degree in the Defence Mechanism Test (DMT) would respond to a subliminal threat with defence mechanisms such as isolation or reaction formation was not confirmed either.