RISK-FACTORS AND PSYCHIC DISORDERS IN MEMBERS OF THE ARMED-FORCES ON MISSIONS ABROAD

Since the Vietnam War numerous epidemiologic researches have attempted to determine the factors influencing the risk of appearance of war ps ychic disorders among soldiers taking part in foreign missions. The st udy of the various individual, collective and specific to experienced situations factors shows combat exposure constitutes the main risk fac tor. Nevertheless, other situations particularly induce such a risk. t aking part in or witnessing atrocity scenes, taking part in mortuary t asks of identification and conditioning of corpses or some individual characteristics such as the existence of psychic antecedents and the p revious confrontation with traumatizing events such as childhood ill-t reatment or physical and sexual assaults, On the contrary, the quality of the family and social background constitutes a protective factor. Finally, if the psychopathological characteristics peculiar to the new peace-keeping missions have been analyzed in many reviews, their real impact on psychic morbidity still remains to be studied as well as co mparing it with other operational missions.