[Psychological complaints, interpersonal problems, quality of life and sense of coherence in former German warchildren].

Recently there is a growing psychotraumatological interest in late life effects in former German warchildren. The following article focusses on kind and amount of trauma and psychopathology (Symptom Check List 90-R; SCL-90-R) in elderly people, who have grown up during World War II. By means of psychometric self-reports we assessed their current interpersonal problems (Inventory of Interpersonal Problems; IIP), the quality of life (SF-36 Health Survey) and their sense of coherence (Antonovsky's Sense of coherence-Scale; SOC). Compared to norms from the general population and from "healthy controls", respectively, former German warchildren showed a higher psychopathological distress. They showed an interpersonal pattern of lower expressive/dominant in favour of enlarged passive and caring behaviour. The psychosocial dimension of quality of life was reduced, in contrast to the somatic scales. The former warchildren showed an increased sense of coherence, especially in the dimension of "meaningfulness". We discuss our findings in the light of the current scientifical knowledge and highlight possible future prospects to develop the warchildhood debate from the clinical and scientifical point of view.