BackgroundAfter military deployment, soldiers are at an increased risk of developing posttraumatic psychiatric disorders. The correlation of personal values with symptoms, however, has not yet been examined within a military context.MethodSchwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ), the Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale (PDS), and the 11-item version of the Resilience Scale (RS-11) were completed by 117 soldiers of the German Armed Forces who had recently been deployed to Afghanistan (n=40 undergoing initial psychiatric treatment, n=77 untreated).ResultsLogistic regression showed that the value types of hedonism (−), power (−), tradition (+), and universalism (+) were significantly correlated with the probability and severity of PTSD and whether the participant was in treatment or not. The effects were partially mediated by the RS-11 scale values.ConclusionsValue types seem to be associated with psychiatric symptoms in soldiers after deployment. These results could contribute to the further development of therapeutic approaches.

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This study asses the effectiveness of classroom-based bridge resource management (BRM) training for junior naval officers, in which general principles of human behaviour and performance in teams and under stress were conveyed. Although BRM training is recommended by the International Maritime Organization and is increasingly common in seafaring, very little is known about whether the adaptation of crew resource management (CRM) training from aviation to the maritime domain has been successful and what type of training is effective. A study with a quasi-experimental, two-factorial mixed design was conducted with BRM training as the between factor and time as the within factor. For 117 study participants, evaluation criteria were assessed on all levels as defined by Kirkpatrick (Train Dev J, 178-192 1979): subjective training evaluation, knowledge, attitudes and behaviour as well as performance while commanding a vessel during a realworld exercise. BRM participants showed better subjective training evaluations and more BRM-related knowledge than controls. Training did not produce differences between groups regarding BRM-related attitudes, the demonstration of non-technical skills or the overall success in the real-world exercise. Overall, BRM training effectiveness was rather low, which can most probably be attributed to the focus of training on generalizable knowledge, skills and attitudes at the expense of their specific application to the context of the real-world exercise. In the design of BRM and CRM training courses alike, the effective application of general principles to a given context must be defined, and the application must be emphasised during training delivery.

Ship management attitudes can be used to assess training needs for nautical teams.