Classification of coping strategies influencing mental health of military personnel having different combat experience

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to determine the types and secondary factor structure of the coping strategies of the National Guard of Ukraine military personnel having different combat experience. The survey involved 437 NGU military personnel who participated in hostilities (51.49%) in eastern Ukraine and those with no such experience (48.51%). For assessing coping strategies of the military, the COPE Inventory methodology (Carver, Scheier, Weintraub, 1989) was used to adapt the Russian version of «COPE Methodology» (Rasskazova, Hordeeva, Osin, 2013). There are four types of coping strategies used by NGU military personnel having different combat experience to deal with stressful situations: pragmatic, adventurous, principled, and adequately differentiatedly active. As the most common type of coping strategies (83%) was identified an adequately differentiated active type, which is characterized by the use of proactive and prosocial coping strategies. Secondary factorization of the most comprehensive type of coping strategists allowed highlighting three main factors. The first factor (26.69%) described the use of copying strategies as active, self-reliant, thoughtful actions aimed at overcoming stressful situations. The second factor (21.51%) described passive protection against stress factors that were adequate in situations that could not be overcome for objective reasons or in situations where active actions could not be applied. The third factor (17.17%) described the objectivity of perception of a stressful situation and the awareness of the mismatch of one's resources to these conditions.