Study On The Relationship Between Mental Health And Cognitive Appraisal Characteristics, Coping Style Of Soldiers

As the backbone of our national defense forces, soldiers'psychological conditions are directly related to the army's combat effectiveness, and the capability to deal with stresses both in war time and in peace time. After the conscription psychological testing and enlistment, the mental health of soldiers will also change with many stressors, such like closed military environment, heavy training missions, the monotonous entertainment and so on. However, the stressors will not act on the human body directly. It must response to a physiological and psychological reactions by the individual cognitive appraisal. This study attempts to begin with grass-roots soldiers, to discuss the relationship between mental health and coping style, cognitive appraisal characteristics, such like stress of life events, self-efficacy and social support, to provide a theoretical basis for improving the troops' overall level of mental health.The methods and the objectives of this study are:1. To understand the level of mental health status of the troops by extensive investigation. 2. Divided the subjects into groups of recruits and elder soldier by enlistment time. Compare and observe the difference between two groups. To study the mental health characteristics of different service time and the influence on the mental health by service time.3. To investigate the subjective cognitive appraisal characteristics of stress of life events, self-efficacy, social support and coping style of soldiers. To analyze comprehensively the influence on mental health by the above factors, and discuss the application foreground of establishing a set of cognitive behavioral group therapy program.The results of this study are as follows:1. The soldiers'mental health level is higher than the military norm. The SCL-90 factor scores of Somatization, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Depression, Photic anxiety, Paranoid ideation and Psychoticism were lower than it with a significant difference. However, compared with the domestic norm, the factor scores are all significantly different except for Interpersonal Sensitivity and Depression. This shows that the soldiers, even the higher levels of mental health groups, are still a high-risk population of mental illness in comparison with the general population, which should attract a high degree of concern by the medical staff and management.2. Soldiers of different service time showed significant differences. The group of recruits has higher level of mental health. It's similar to the domestic norm. The SCL-90 factor scores were all significantly lower than those of the military norm. In contrast, the SCL-90 factor scores of elder soldiers are similar to the military norm. They all haven't significant differences from the military norm except for Somatization, while all have significant differences from the domestic norm except for Depress. 3. The cognitive appraisal characteristics of recruits and elder soldiers are similar. Only subjective stress and objective social support of the two groups were significant differences, what mainly due to the different service time. In the different stages of service time the life events which had stronger influences on soldiers'mental health had been quite different.4. Subjective stress and negative coping style have significant negative correlations with mental health. Self-efficacy, subjective support and positive coping style have significant positive correlations with mental health. The life events,self-efficacy and subjective social support all have main effect on mental health levels, and there is interaction between the life events and subjective social support. To conclude, the soldiers'cognitive appraisal characteristics and coping style are closely related to their mental health. To strengthen the research of cognitive behavioral group therapy in troops is of great significance for improving the overall level of mental health of the troops.