Issue 4
Vol. 44
2002

Life after War: Coping with War Trauma
Vedrana Mladina, Helmuth P. Huber

Summary
The main purpose of this study was to compare different groups of survivors of the civil war in Bosnia (1992 – 1995) with respect to symptoms of PTSD and coping measures. Forty-six men and 34 women (soldiers, refugees, land mine victims, and persons who survived the war at home) were assessed. Paticipants´s ages ranged from 21 to 59 years (M = 36.2, SD = 9.93). It was found that soldiers and refugees exhibited the most pronounced PTSD symptomatology. Furthermore, women showed a higher mean IES avoidance score than men. Discriminant analysis revealed that group differences in coping measures can be described in terms of two discriminant functions. Compared with men, religious coping was more widely employed by women.

Key words: war trauma, coping, intrusion, avoidance, hopelessness

Vedrana Mladina, Helmuth P. Huber
UN International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
Den Haag, Netherlands
Department of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

To whom the correspondence should be addressed at 
Institut für Psychologie
Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
Universitätsplatz 2
A-8010 Graz
Austria
e-mail: helmuth.huber@uni-graz.at