Issue 3/4 Vol. 34 1992

Psychic disturbances in Croatian Army soldiers hospitalized at the Psychiatric Hospital Vrapce-Zagreb

GORETA, M.

The present paper is a survey of psychic disturbances in Croatian army soldiers hospitalized at the Department for Diagnostics and Intensive Care /m/ of the Clinical Psychiatric Hospital Vrapce in the period from September 28 1991 to April 27 1992. Out of the complete sample of 29 patients, 18 (62%) were admitted to hospital because of reactive disturbances at a non-psychotic level, while the remaining 11 patients (37.9%) were hospitalized because of psychotic manifestations. Five of them (17.2%) had been treated as psychotic even before they joined the Croatian Army. The majority of the patients (23, i.e. 79.2% ) had been in the Croatian army for five months. Most of the hospitalizations (8) in this sample occurred in December 1991. The patients with non-psychotic disturbances were hospitalized for 12.7 days on an average, and psychotic patients for 20.2 days on an average. Analysis of the results shows that the diagnostic procedure should be improved already in the phase of recruitment of new soldiers, in order to prevent psychic decompensations and other problems which may be provoked by their disturbed behaviour both in peacetime and - even more so - in war situations.

Keywords: psychiatry in war, war, traumatic experiences, soldiers

Short Title: Goreta, M. (1992) PsyBeit 3-4:242

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