Comparative study of psychological wellª²being between frontier soldiers and inland soldiers

    WANG Jingª²Sheng, ZUO Xiaoª²Dong, REN Yuan

    1Military Psychology Center, Shijiazhuang Mechanized Infantry Academy, Shijiazhuang 050083, China, 2Office of Political Department, Beijing Military Area Command, Beijing 100041, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To explore the psychological wellª²being status of the soldiers stationed at frontier and the soldiers stationed inland. METHODS: A total of 407 frontier soldiers and inland soldiers were investigated by Symptom Checklist 90 (SCLª²90) and Loneliness Scale from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). RESULTS: Forty one (20.9%) soldiers in frontier and 81 (38.4%) inland soldiers got high scores. The SCLª²90 total and all the factor scores and UCLA total score of inland solders were significantly higher than those of frontier soldiers (P<0.05). The SCLª²90 total score and interpersonal sensitivity, anxiety, hostility, paranoid ideation, psychoticism scores and UCLA total score of soldiers with work experience were significantly higher than those of soldiers with no work experience (P<0.05). The SCLª²90 hostility and paranoid ideation scores of soldiers from urban areas were significantly higher than those from rural areas (P<0.05). The SCLª²90 somatization score of nonª²commissioned officers (NCOs) was significantly higher than that of enlisted men (P<0.05). Variance analysis showed that the interactive effect of ranks and stations on the psychological wellª²being of enlisted men was significant (P<0.01), that the SCLª²90 total score of frontier NCOs was significantly higher than that of frontier enlisted men (P<0.01), and that the SCLª²90 total score of frontier enlisted men was significantly higher than that of the inland enlisted men (P<0.01). CONCLUSION: The psychological wellª²being of the soldiers stationed at frontier is better than that of soldiers stationed inland. In the inland and frontier troops, the changing trends of the psychological wellª²being in NCOs and enlisted men are different. ......