War Veterans' Quality of Life: the Impact of Lifetime Traumatic Experiences, Psychological and Physical Health-related Characteristics

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the cross-sectional differences in self-reported psychological symptoms, life-time exposure to traumatic events, coping styles, personality traits and overall quality of life between the PTSD and non-PTSD Croatian War veterans. A total of 113 subjects within the three groups participated in the study (veterans with PTSD, non-PTSD veterans and controls). Veterans with PTSD assessed both combat experiences and exposure to other life-time traumatic events as extremely stressful, much more so than veterans without PTSD or control subjects. Scores among the non-PTSD veterans were similar to the control subjects, except on the M-PTSD scale, scale of psychosomatic symptoms and coping by avoidance. Intensity of PTSD, extraversion and active coping were individually significant in explaining the total QoL (p<0.01). This study showed that veterans with PTSD became extremely vulnerable to lifetime stress events.