Resilience as a Protective Factor in Basic Military Training, a Longitudinal Study of the Swiss Armed Forces.

Sandra Sefidan,Thomas Wyss,Maria Pramstaller,Serge Brand,Dena Sadeghi-Bahmani,Roberto La Marca,Hubert Annen

doi:10.3390/ijerph18116077

Abstract

For recruits, basic military training (BMT) can be experienced as a stressful episode in which relevant protective factors such as resilience might be essential for successful completion of the training. The present study examined whether resilience would act as a protective factor during BMT in the Swiss Armed Forces. To this end, we conducted a cross-sectional and longitudinal study of resilience and psychological burden. At the beginning of the BMT and at week 11, 525 male recruits (mean age: 20.3 years) completed a series of questionnaires covering demographic information and assessing resilience, perceived stress and mental distress. In parallel, their superiors rated recruits’ military performance in week 13. Dropout rates were also registered. Cross-sectionally and longitudinally, higher resilience scores predicted lower scores for perceived stress, mental distress, and better military performance. Higher self-rated resilience was moderately associated with military performance, as rated by recruits’ superiors. Resilience scores, perceived stress and mental distress did not differ between those recruits continuing their BMT and dropouts. In support of our assumptions, resilience acted as a protective factor during Swiss Armed Forces BMT.

Highlights

We report a study examining whether resilience acts as a protective factor against stress in a sample of Swiss male recruits during their basic military training (BMT)
The aims of the present study were four-fold: First, to investigate the associations between resilience, perceived stress and mental distress at the beginning of the BMT; second, to calculate if and to what extent resilience at baseline could predict perceived stress and mental distress at week 11 of the BMT; third, to investigate if resilience, perceived stress, and mental distress were associated with military performance, as rated by recruits’ superiors; fourth and last, if recruits dropping prematurely from the BMT showed specific psychological profiles, compared to those completing the BMT at least until week 11
The novelty of the present study is that findings add to the current literature in three ways. It appeared that resilience was a protective factor for perceived stress and mental distress longitudinally

Summary

Introduction

Stress in the workplace appears to have become one of the most impactful health problems [1]. This holds true for both civilian (private companies; governmental institutions) and military contexts (military personnel in basic military training; military personnel during peace and war missions). While research on stress has focused on the causes and consequences of stress in the workplace [2,3,4,5,6,7,8], research into stress-protective factors is much less extensive [9,10,11]. We provide a brief narrative overview of stress and workplace-related stress; we provide a brief narrative overview of stress among 4.0/).

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