Since February 24, 2022, military personnel of the Ukrainian Defense Forces have been resisting the military aggression of the Russian Federation. The fighting and the mobilization of men for military service complicated the well-being of Ukrainian families. The purpose of the article is to identify the relationship between the choice of coping strategies and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and maladaptation indicators in married and unmarried mobilized military personnel. Ukrainian Defense Forces military personnel (n=171 males, between 20 and 60 years of age) took part in this study. The “Strategic Approach to Coping Scale”, “Mississippi Scale for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder”, and “Disadaptation Express Questionnaire” were used. Correlation and exploratory factor analysis made it possible to identify the structure of coping strategies in mobilized servicemen with different family statuses and to determine the relationships between coping strategies, PTSD, and maladaptation indicators. The pre-war experience of using coping strategies by married and unmarried mobilized military personnel was not a sufficient barrier to the emergence of PTSD symptoms and maladaptation manifestations. Married and unmarried mobilized servicemen had a deficit structure of coping strategies characteristic of war.
According to the results of the conducted study there were distinguished the peculiarities of perception of the image of a junior officer by servicemen who participated in hostilities and had various PTSD symptoms. The study included 233 male servicemen with combat experience. The age of the participants varied from 20 to 55 years. It was determined that the image perception of the direct commander by the servicemen who did not have any PTSD symptoms had been influenced by both the key features of the modern way of fighting and the way a protective mechanism of consciousness acted, which gave the possibility to maintain mental health under combat conditions. These servicemen considered the awareness, kindness, and physical strength of their commander to be not important. The first stage was occupied by his/her ability to adequately fulfill his/her leadership function and the power of his/her spirit – the courage and love of the Motherland, which formed his/her reliability. Servicemen who had PTSD symptoms were less satisfied with the role of a junior officer and considered him/her to be less capable of meeting their expectations. They were less interested in commanders who could involve them in situations that required quick, brave action and complete responsibility for the entrusted part of common affairs. The most important factors in the structure of the direct commander image in both studied groups were the power of personality (the ability of self-regulation); however, the servicemen with PTSD symptoms had a specific orientation of these factors – to help their subordinates. They were quite selfishly aimed at using their direct commanders as a way of getting help.
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
