Investigation of psychopathological state of patients depending on specific clinical characteristics of physical trauma.
BACKGROUND
This article is the retrospective-comparative research of psychopathological reaction of somatically traumatized people. The influence of the outside circumstances of injury (war, job, traffic accident, leisure), injured body part (torso, leg, arm) and different clinical characteristics of injury (surgery, mobile of patient, amputation, acuteness of injury, etc.) are analyzed as potentially factors of the type of the psychical reactions on physical trauma.


METHODS
The sample of 70 Serb patients hospitalized in the University Orthopedic Clinic (26 fighters from Bosnia-Herzego-vina and 44 Belgrade residents injured in peace time), was investigated as an experimental group. The control group contained 105 subjects from Belgrade area, 45 of whom had mental trauma experience and 60 had no trauma experience whatsoever. The subjects were tested with the following instruments: Event Effect Scale, PTSS-10 Scale, FHI, Brief Eysenck's Personality Inventory, LEAIQ, GHQ-60, General Questionnaire for Accidents. In the statistical data processing, c2 test, discrimination analysis, and calculation of linear correlation were used.


RESULTS
It was determined that the outside circumstances of injury, injured part of the body, amputation, medication and acuteness of the injury did not differentiate any of the psychopathological types of responses analyzed in the research.


CONCLUSIONS
Difficult surgery and the immobility of the patient correlated significantly with the high values on the PTSD Scale i.e. the general neuroticism. The seriousness of injury correlated negatively with the intensity of family cohesiveness.
Opalic
P
P
Institute of Psychiatry and Institute for Orthopaedics, University Clinical Center, Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
Lesic
A
A
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009497:Neurotic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*