Psychological and psychiatric issues in space.
Based on anecdotal reports from space and studies of space analog environments on Earth, a number of psychosocial and psychiatric issues have been identified that can lead to problems in space. We studied several of these issues during a series of Shuttle/Mir missions. We found support for decrements in commander support during the 2nd half of the missions and a novelty effect in U.S. astronauts at the beginning. Displacement of unpleasant emotions to outside individuals was found in both crewmember and mission control subjects. Americans were less happy with their work environment than Russians, and mission control personnel were more dysphoric than crewmembers. The subjects considered problems on-board the Mir to be major critical events. We found no evidence for the occurrence of asthenia during the missions, although our measure did not evaluate all of the features of this syndrome.
Professor of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco; and Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA. nick21@itsa.ucsf.edu
Nick
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Kanas