Citation

Kuwert P, Spitzer C, Dudeck M, Vogel M, Freyberger HJ, Ermann M. Psychother. Psychosom. Med. Psychol. 2008; 58(6): 257-263.

Vernacular Title

Psychische Beschwerden, interpersonale Probleme, Lebensqualitat und

Affiliation

Klinik und Poliklinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie der Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald am HANSE-Klinikum Stralsund. kuwert@uni-greifswald.de

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Georg Thieme Verlag)

DOI

10.1055/s-2007-986210

PMID

17957652

Abstract

Recently there is a growing psycho-traumatological interest in late life effects in former German war children. The following article focuses on kind and amount of trauma and psychopathology (Symptom Check List 90-R; SCL-90-R) in elderly people, who have grown up during World War II. By means of psychometric self-reports we assessed their current interpersonal problems (Inventory of Interpersonal Problems; IIP), the quality of life (SF-36 Health Survey) and their sense of coherence (Antonovsky's Sense of coherence-Scale; SOC). Compared to norms from the general population and from "healthy controls", respectively, former German war children showed a higher psychopathological distress. They showed an interpersonal pattern of lower expressive/dominant in favor of enlarged passive and caring behaviour. The psychosocial dimension of quality of life was reduced, in contrast to the somatic scales. The former war children showed an increased sense of coherence, especially in the dimension of "meaningfulness". We discuss our findings in the light of the current scientific knowledge and highlight possible future prospects to develop the war childhood debate from the clinical and scientific point of view.

Language: de