Resumo

ENRIQUE, Alejandro. Neuroticismo, extraversión y estilo atribucional en veteranos de guerra: una aproximación desde el estrés postraumático. Interdisciplinaria [online]. 2004, vol.21, n.2, pp.213-246. ISSN 1668-7027.

   The people who go through a traumatic experience such as: war, natural disastrers, and sexual abuse, among others, are prone to develop a specific kind of clinical pathology known as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This pathology, with its particular characteristics, frequently appears in tandem with a series of associated disorders, as well as a strong incidence (negative in most cases) in every aspect of the daily lives of the people who suffer from it. In the particular case of the Falckland Islands war veterans, the presence of the syndrome in the people who did not have the possibility of psychological assistence and post war emotional contention, is associated to a pessimistic or disadaptative attributional style, as well as to higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of extraversion when compared to the normal population. As a result, they suffer from higher levels of floating anxiety, poor impulse control, emotional instability and incapability of generating and maintaining steady social relationships. On the other hand, those veterans who showed the symptoms presented meaningful differences, in same variables, as opposed to the war veterans that did not develop PTSD. War veterans who suffered PTSD showed higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of extraversion when compared to the war veterans that did not develop PTSD; the first group of veterans also showed an more disadaptative attributional style when compared to the veterans without PTSD. The presence of PTSD in the veteran group is associated with a series of high risk health behaviors, such as adictive-dependient behavior and others relationed to evasive and disadaptative coping. Veterans with PTSD developed higher levels of neuroticism and showed more susceptibility to negative stimulation and stress vulnerability. Thus, they also show a higher tendency to experience anger and problems to control their desires and impulses. On the other hand, lower levels of extraversion make it more difficult for a person to experience interpersonal intimacy, to enjoy the company of other people and experience feelings like happiness, joy and excitement. There too is a relationship between PTSD and a unadaptative attributional style with an internal, global and stable causality to explain failure; this is the same attribu-tional style of depressive patients. This attributional style like a beliefe system is associated with the tendency to develop psychological problems.

Palavras-chave : War veterans; Post-traumatic Stress Disorder attributional style; Neuroticism; Extraversion.

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