[Psychological health status and personality of the recruits in relation with their injuries during military training].

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the relationship of the psychological status and personality to the injuries arising from military training among the recruits.

METHODS

The Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90) and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) were used to evaluate the psychological health status of the recruits in an army force unit participating in the basic military training in 2002.

RESULTS

The annual incidence of the injuries during the training was 9.6%. Before the training commenced, the scores of SCL-90 showed no significant difference between injured group and non-injured group (P>0.05), while measurement after the training revealed significantly higher score for psychosis in the injured group than non-injured group (P<0.01). The most frequent psychological problems before training were obsession, interpersonal relations and depression, while after training, interpersonal relations, obsession and psychosis were highlighted as the major problems. The number of recruits with the total score no less than 160 and personality type distribution were similar between the two groups.

CONCLUSION

The incidence of the injuries in relation to military training are significantly decreased after the implementation of the new training protocol, and no relations of psychological problems and personality was identified with the training.