On February 24, 2022, the Russian-Ukrainian war began, in which hundreds of thousands of military personnel are participating. Almost all military personnel experience combat stress. In our opinion, the most fully reflecting the occurrence of stress in humans, including combat stress in military personnel, is the conservation of resource theory proposed by S. Hobfoll. According to this theory, stress occurs when: central or key resources (health, well-being, family, self-esteem, and a sense of purpose and meaning in life) are threatened with loss, are lost, or cannot be retrieved following significant effort. Combat stress in military personnel can manifest itself in the form of negative manifestations of the psychological, physical, psychophysiological, and behavioral register. The most effective system for the prevention and control of combat stress among military personnel was developed in the US Army. Such a program should contain medical and psychological work activities carried out in three stages: preparatory (before performing combat missions), the stage of direct performance of tasks in the combat zone, and the final stage (after completing tasks upon returning to permanent deployment points).
The article shows the development of the method of psychological evaluation called “Evaluation of Negative Mental Reactions and States of Combatants”. In the study participated 1300 male servicemen (29.84% from junior lieutenant to colonel and servicemen under contract and demobilized, and 70.16% from private to senior warrant officer). The age of participants varied from 20 to 55 years. The system of evaluation developed consisted of 16 instruments that could help to determine the presence of negative psychological symptoms of servicemen related to their participation in hostilities. The results indicated that the evaluation method developed is a tool that allows determining the presence of negative psychological symptoms related to participation in combat. Likewise, it is a useful and fast method to assess the effectiveness of short-term psychological recovery programs. Unlike existing methods of diagnosing negative mental reactions and states of an individual, which arose after their participation in hostilities, the developed psychodiagnostic toolkit could consider the physical and mental fatigue of the respondents, their deterioration, and other cognitive dysfunctions.
In accordance with the results of conducted research there were figured out the content, hierarchy, intensity of motives and their possibility to be implemented in servicemen with various levels of effectiveness of service activity. 2435 male servicemen participated in the research, they equally presented all the operational and territorial military unifications and units of the National Guard of Ukraine. Each unit proportionately presented officers as well as military personnel under contract who included the participants of hostilities and those who did not have such experience. Examination of various aspects of servicemen motivation was conducted with the help of the following the methods which were standardized being based on the Ukrainian selection “Close Questionnaire of Examining the Motivation of Professional Choice Made by Applicants of the Ministry of Internal Affairs”, “Questionnaire of Estimation of the Effectiveness of Military Tasks’ Execution by Servicemen of the National Guard of Ukraine”, questionnaire on “Sense-Bearing and Life Orientations”, the methods of “Studying the Motivational Profile of Personality”, and “Locus of Control”. There was conducted the cluster analysis which gave the possibility to figure out six motivational types connected with the effectiveness of servicemen operational activity. Motivational types were located between the poles which were introduced by two dimensions: self-efficacy (autonomous and controlled motivation) and motivation of helping others (motivations of public service - selfishness). Those motivational types of servicemen were the following: motivated by public service, stagnant, prosocial, romantic, deficient, and dependent. Distinguished types included the content, hierarchy, intensity of motives and their possibility to be implemented
