Research On The Relationship Of The Social Support, Personality And Mental Health Of The Military Personnel Stationed On The Island

Objective Our study is to understand the social support of the military personnel stationed on the island and its general characteristics, and to reveal the effects of the interaction between the social support and the personality on the mental health through analyzing the interrelationship between the social support, personality and the mental health. Meanwhile, we establish a pathway analysis model to indicate how the social support and the personality dimensions affect the mental health.Methods Using the Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS), the Symptom Checklist 90(SCL-90) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), 203 military personnel stationed on the island were investigated. And 396 military personnel stationed on the land were investigated with the same questionnaire for comparison.Results Among the military personnel stationed on the island, those with comparatively poor total social support and family internal and external support occupied 10.3%, 10.3% and 13.8% respectively, while those with comparatively good total social support and family internal and external support occupied 32%, 55.7% and 31% respectively. The scores of the social support, family internal support and the family external support of the experimental group were lower than those of the control. Statistical analysis indicated that the social support of the military personnel stationed on the island was significantly poorer than the military personnel stationed on the land (PO.05).Three social support levels among the military personnel had significant differences on all of the symptom factors except for the panic factor (P<0.05). Those with the high level of the social support were mentally better off than those with low level of the social support. On the personality dimension, those with high level of the social support got significantly higher score of EPQ-E (P<0.01), while they got significantly lower score of EPQ-N (P< 0.05).There was negative correlation between the social support and most factors of SCL-90, especially, the external family support had the highest significant correlation with each SCL-90 factors (r=0.210). Among thesymptom factors, the depression factor had the closest correlation with the total social support (r=0.225) and the next was the compulsion factor (r=0.215). The internal family support had significant correlation only with the depression factor (r=0.148), while the external family support had closest correlation with the compulsion factor (r=0.229) and the depression factor was next to it (r=0.225). By correlation analysis with the two dimensions of EPQ, the social support level had positive correlation with EPQ-E (r=0.322), while having no significant correlation with EPQ-N.The multiple regression analysis indicated the main factor that affected the social support of the military personnel stationed on the island was dimension of EPQ-E, with the multiple correlation coefficient of 0.322 and the determinant coefficient of 0.103 in the regression equation. Among the dimensions of the social support, the main factor that affected the mental health of the military personnel stationed on the island was the external family support, with the multiple correlation coefficient of 0.210 and the determinant coefficient of 0.044.The interaction analysis indicated that the social support and the EPQ-N had no significant interaction with the mental health and the symptom factors. However, the social support and the EPQ-E had significant interaction with the symptom factors of SCL mean value, depression, relationship sensitivity and psychosis. The level of EPQ-E had comparatively greater effects on the mental health of those with lower or middle level of the social support, but less effects on the mental health of those with higher level of the social support, which was embodied that among subjects with lower EQP-E, the mental health of those with low level of social support was poorer than those with high and middle level of social support, moreover, their symptoms of depression and psychosis we...