Dynamics of mental health indicators of military personnel serving on conscription in Navy and Land forces of Russian Ministry of Defense (2003-2021): Retrospective study

OBJECTIVE. To compare the dynamics of mental health indicators of military personnel serving under conscription in the Navy and Army of the Russian Ministry of Defense in order to optimize psychoprophylactic measures in troops.

MATERIALS AND METHODS. We studied the indicators of mental morbidity presented in the database of medical reports on the form 3/MED for 19 years (2003-2021). The medical and statistical indicators were correlated with the groups of mental disorders of chapter V “Mental and Behavioral Disorders” adopted in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Health Related Problems, 10th revision (ICD-10). The mental morbidity of conscripted military personnel was calculated per 10,000 people (×10^-4). Due to the nonparametric distribution of signs, medians with upper and lower quartiles were presented (Me [Q₂₅; Q₇₅]).

RESULTS. Military personnel serving under conscription in the Navy, as compared to the Army, have statistically significantly higher levels of general and primary morbidity with mental disorders, hospitalization, days of labor loss, and dismissal rate, while the share of record-keeping types of morbidity was only 2-3% of the structure, and dismissal rate was 55%. In the Navy and Ground Forces, the 1st-2nd ranks of the military epidemiological assessment of mental disorders were made up of the indicators of neurotic, stress-related, and somatoform disorders (F40-F48 according to ICD-10) and disorders of adult personality and behaviour (F60-F69). For example, in the Navy, statistically significantly higher levels of reaction to severe stress, and adjustment disorders (F43) and neurotic disorders have been revealed (F40–F42, F44, F46–F48). The 3rd rank of significance in the Navy was formed by data of behavioural and emotional disorders with onset usually occurring in childhood and adolescence (F90-F98), in the Army – organic, including symptomatic, mental disorders (F01–F09).

DISCUSSION. Genetic, psychophysiological, social and other factors were a frequent cause of mental disorders in conscripts, such as personality and behavioral disorders in adulthood, and the conditions of military service were the conditions of their manifestation. During the period of educational and professional activity in the Navy, servicepersons have significant disorders of mental adaptation, which necessitates the need for targeted psychoprophylactic measures at various stages of military service.

CONCLUSION. The conducted studies have shown that a significant part of mental disorders in conscripts are caused by the weakness of “barrier functions” of military commissariats due to underestimation of the state of mental health of conscripts by military medical commissions. At the same time, the main measures of psychoprophylactic work in troops should begin during the period of training of servicemen in military training centers.

marine medicine, conscripts, mental disorders, mental maladaptation, Navy, Land forces

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