Military Stress, Stress Coping, and Mental Health Status among Soldiers who Need Intensive Care

Hyunlye Kim; Ran Keum; Sunah Kim; Su In Park; Jin Young Park

doi:10.12934/jkpmhn.2013.22.4.285

Journal List > J Korean Acad Psychiatr Ment Health Nurs > v.22(4) > 1057984

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Kim, Keum, Kim, Park, and Park: Military Stress, Stress Coping, and Mental Health Status among Soldiers who Need Intensive Care

Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 2013; 22(4): 285-294.

Published online: 31 December 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12934/jkpmhn.2013.22.4.285

Military Stress, Stress Coping, and Mental Health Status among Soldiers who Need Intensive Care

Hyunlye Kim¹, Ran Keum², Sunah Kim³, Su In Park⁴, Jin Young Park⁴

¹College of Nursing, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.

²Department of Nursing, Baekseok Culture University, Cheonan, Korea.

³College of Nursing, Yonsei University, Nursing Policy Research Institute, Seoul, Korea.

⁴Master's Course, College of Nursing, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Park, Su In. College of Nursing, Yonsei University, 134 Shinchon-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-752, Korea. Tel: +82-2-2228-3387, Fax: +82-2-392-5440, inytt@hanmail.net

Received 24 October 2013 Revised 5 December 2013 Accepted 23 December 2013

(open-access):

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to explore the level of military stress, stress coping, and mental health status and to identify the relationships among these variables in soldiers who need intensive care.

Methods

The participants were 113 perceived maladjusted soldiers who participated in Green-camp from one army base in Gyeong-gi Province. Data were collected using self-report questionnaires and analyzed with the SPSS-WIN 20.0 program. The instruments were the Military Stress Inventory, Ways of Coping Checklist, and Symptoms Checklist- 90-Revision (SCL-90-R).

Results

The level of stress was 3.6±0.70, overall stress coping was 1.1±0.41, and mental health status was 1.5±0.93. There were significant differences in stress, stress coping, and mental health status according religion, economic status of family, prospects for the future, persons with whom one could talk about troubles. The group with higher emotion focused coping had significantly higher scores on mental health status. There were significant positive correlations among major variables. Military stress was a significant predictor of mental health status (Adjusted R² 21.0%).

Conclusion

Based on the findings of this study, stress management and intervention programs focusing on depression are highly recommended to manage maladaptive problems in soldiers.

Keywords: Psychological stress, Coping skills, Mental health, Military personnel

Figures and Tables

Table 1

General Characteristics of Participants (N=113)

Table 2

Level of Stress, Stress Coping and Mental Health Status (N=113)

Table 3

Differences in Stress, Stress Coping and Mental Health Status by Characteristics (N=113)

^†Scheffé test; ^‡Including corporal.

Table 4

Correlation among Variables (N=113)

Table 5

Influence of Stress on Mental Health Status (N=113)

Notes

This research was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (No. 2011-0029113).

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