Psychiatria Danubina, Vol. 28 No. 2, 2016.
Original scientific paper
THE IMPACT OF EMOTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS IN THE CHRONICITY OF POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
Tatjana Milenković
; Clinic for Mental Health, Clinical Center of Niš, Niš, Serbia
Aleksandar Jovanović
; Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine Belgrade, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
Abstract
Background: The research objective was to identify overstated emotional characteristics in armed conflict veterans as well as
both the similarities and differences in personality profiles between patients suffering from acute and chronic forms of posttraumatic
stress disorder (PTSD).
Subjects and methods: Our study’s sample consisted of 60 participants in the armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28
February, 1998 until 11 June, 1999. All of them were diagnosed with PTSD, during the six months period after their return from
active duty. In 2014 we retested the same subjects to see their current psychological state. Diagnoses of PTSD were made using
Structure Clinical Interview for DSM–IV (SCID-I), while the assessment of emotional characteristics was made using Plutchik's
emotion profile index (PIE).
Results: We established no statistically significant difference in PIE profiles between both groups in recent re-testing. The only
significant difference as per PIE classification was found earlier when the subjects were initially diagnosed. The amplified emotional
dimension was exploration, and only the group of chronic PTSD patients displayed significantly higher values (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Emotional profiles, as a whole, proved to be very similar amongst subjects with both acute and chronic form of the
PTSD. The only noted difference is in the significantly higher values of exploration emotional dimension, but only at the time when
they were first given initial diagnosis, and only in the group of subjects who later developed the chronic form of PTSD which can
indicate that exploration is a factor of vulnerability which is important in chronicity.
Keywords
personality profiles; emotional characteristic; PTSD; war veterans
Hrčak ID:
177181
URI
Publication date:
7.6.2016.
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