Abstract
Psychotrauma occurs as a result to a traumatic event, which may involve witnessing someone's actual death or personally experiencing serious physical injury, assault, rape and sexual abuse, being held as a hostage, or a threat to physical or psychological integrity. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder and was defined in the past as railway spine, traumatic war neurosis, stress syndrome, shell shock, battle fatigue, combat fatigue, or post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS). If untreated, post-traumatic stress disorder can impair relationships of those affected and strain their families and society. Deployed soldiers are especially at a high risk to be affected by PTSD but often receive inadequate treatment. Reviews to date have focused only on a single type of treatment or groups of soldiers from only one country. The aim of the current review was to evaluate characteristics of therapeutic methods used internationally to treat male soldiers' PTSD after peacekeeping operations in South Eastern Europe and the Gulf wars.This systematic literature review returned results pertaining to the symptoms, diagnosis, timing and effectiveness of treatment. Sample groups and controls were relatively small and, therefore, the results lack generalizability. Further research is needed to understand the influence and unique psychological requirements of each specific military operation on the internationally deployed soldiers.
Highlights
This paper focuses on Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of male military service during gulf wars and peacekeeping operations in South Eastern Europe
Little is known about the role of prevention in PTSD, some promising results from "combat stress control units" are available [18,19]
The findings of this study suggest further research is needed, it is too early to assume that debriefing is ineffective in PTSD treatment [57]
Summary
Traumatic events can cause psychological trauma (figure 1). These traumatic events may be single (Type I Traumata), continuous, or repetitive incidents (Type II Traumata) that render inadequate one's ability to cope with the resulting feelings [1]. The inability to cope may become apparent weeks to years after the traumatic experience. The traumatic event may involve witnessing someone's actual death or personally experiencing serious physical injury, rape and sexual abuse, being held hostage, or a threat to physical or mental stability. This is especially true for traumata during childhood. Though often a component of the traumatic event, is not mandatory for the development of psychological trau-
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