To understand this, the researchers took an extreme case: they studied the behavior of military personnel in hot spots.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe mental disorder that, in particular, can occur in military personnel participating in combat operations. How does it manifest itself? In the affected person, difficult memories of the traumatic event constantly involuntarily emerge, while many details, on the contrary, are forced out of memory. Patients suffer from insomnia, anxiety, have problems concentrating, often begin to abuse alcohol or drugs.
In recent years, the US Department of Defense has been actively promoting a policy of gender equality: more and more women serve in the armed forces of the country, and in 2013 a provision was repealed that prohibited them from being sent to combat units.
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The US Veterans Affairs Committee organized a study in which the stories of 4800 military personnel (equally male and female) were studied, and the researchers selected for comparison “pairs” of people of different sexes who were most similar to each other in various parameters. On average, female soldiers are less likely than men to participate directly in battles, but in this case, the researchers selected precisely those who had almost the same experience. When selecting couples, parameters such as age, race, level of education, marital status, type of armed forces, military specialty and rank were taken into account.
At the start of the study, none of these men and women had PTSD. They were interviewed three times, between 2001 and 2003, between 2004 and 2006, and between 2007 and 2008. They at least once were on business trips in Iraq or Afghanistan.
During the study, 6,1% of men and 6,7% of women developed PTSD. According to the researchers, this difference is not statistically significant. The severity of the disorder did not differ between men and women. Which, of course, allows us to say that the female psyche is not inferior to the male in stability or, conversely, susceptibility. We draw conclusions!
Подробнее см. I. Jacobson et al. «Longitudinal assessment of gender differences in the development of PTSD among US military personnel deployed in support of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan», Journal of Psychiatric Research, vol. 68, September 2015.