Probable Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Probable Alcohol Use Disorder in association to violent behaviour in Ukrainian Anti-Terroristic Operation veterans

Abstract: Post-traumatic stress disorder, Alcohol Use Disorder and violent behavior are common among post-deployment war veterans. This study investigated the occurrence and co-occurrence of probable Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), probable Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) and violent behavior, and specifically investigated whether co-occurrence of probable PTSD and probable AUD escalates violent behavior in Ukrainian male help-seeking Anti-Terroristic Operation (ATO) veterans. The study targeted male Ukrainian ATO veterans (n = 144) seeking psychological help at three Ukrainian veterans’ centers located in Dnepr, Kirovograd and Kiev regions between February 2018 – March 2018. Data was collected through close-ended self-administered questionnaires by using screening tools; the Mississippi Scale for Combat-Related PTSD, The Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test-Consumption (AUDIT-C), and four domains abstracted from items measuring violent behavior in National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study. Using IBM SPSS Statistics 24 for Windows, frequencies, correlations between variables, and logistic regression analysis were run. Results indicate that 13 % of ATO veterans have met the criteria for probable PTSD, 25% for probable sub-threshold PTSD and 73 % for probable AUD. Further results indicate that veterans recorded positive results in these syndromes reported higher frequency of violent acts, with increased odds of high frequency violent behavior when the syndromes co-occur. Future research directions are discussed.