Page 29 - IJSA, Vol. 4, No 2, 2021

International Journal of Science Annals, Vol. 5, No. 1-2, 2022
рrint ISSN: 2617-2682; online ISSN: 2707-3637; DOI:10.26697/ijsa

educational process for all stakeholders in the conditions distress in the form of anxiety, depression, and acute
of the war active phase. stress.
A comprehensive study (developed questionnaire and It is known that mental health and psychosocial support
DASS-21 tool) made it possible to identify psychogenic programmes are some of the least expensive activities in
factors affecting cadets and students in war and martial humanitarian response. However, they can have a
law conditions, as well as to detail psychopathological priceless impact on the lives of people who need them
symptoms on “Anxiety”, “Depression”, and “Stress” (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
scales. Societies, n. d.).
Current academic publications in psychology, medicine, According to independent experts, Russian military
pedagogy, as well as the authors’ own experience aggression against Ukraine is an intended genocide (New
allowed us to build the methodological basis of our Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy & Raoul
research. Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, 2022).
The presence of a humanitarian crisis negatively affects Therefore, researchers are confident that this war will
the mental health of the population and can lead to cause significant damage to the mental health of the
serious psychological and social consequences. Youth Ukrainian population (Shevlin et al., 2022).
exposed to conflict face intense emotional stress that can It should not be forgotten that the mental health status of
lead to lifelong mental health and psychosocial problems the Ukrainian population, in particular university
(UNICEF, 2022). students, has already been weakened by the impact of the
In addition, it must be taken into account that in the COVID-19 pandemic (Melnyk et al., 2020).
context of the contemporary world globalization, the Scientists suggest that the cumulative impact of COVID-
influence of a war-taking place in one country will 19 and the war in Ukraine will severely compromise
inevitably lead to consequences in other countries as it physical and mental health globally, affecting Ukrainians
affects international issues of politics, economics, in particular (Kalaitzaki et al., 2022).
population migration, healthcare, etc. In our previous research, we studied the problem of
Mental health effects of war also cut across all strata of diagnostics and prevention of mental disorders to
civilians. So there is an urgent need not only for cross- preserve a personality’s mental health (Melnyk &
national research on the mental health effects of war on Stadnik, 2018); psycho-diagnostic methods “Resistance
civilians using improved methods of study, but also for a to military mental traumatization” was used to study the
continuous re-evaluation of the nosology of these effects impact of war on the mental state of an individual
(Karam & Ghosn, 2003). (Melnyk, Prykhodko, & Stadnik, 2019). Resistance to
Early experience of the individual affects the state of post-traumatic stress reactions was checked using the
mental health. This fact should be considered. As early following methods: “Mississippi Scale for Estimating
as World War II, the effects of war on mental health and Post-Traumatic Reactions”, “Depression Anxiety Stress
persistent symptoms in children were studied. Among Scales”, and “Insomnia Severity Index” (Melnyk &
other, the earliest reaction is that to sirens and noise in Stadnik, 2020; Melnyk, Stadnik, & Pypenko, 2020).
general. It was found that the incident was assimilated in Many years of experience in studying the problem of
varying degrees according to the stage of development of preserving mental health of a personality allowed us to
the child’s personality. The extraordinary toughness of develop and test effective means of preserving mental
the child and his flexibility in adapting to potentially health and preventing mental disorders in war and martial
threatening situations has been proven (Bodman, 1941). law conditions.
After the end of the World War, local wars broke out in First of all, we focus on the fact that this research should
different parts of the globe. Scientists regularly be comprehensive both in the aspect of personality
conducted research on the impact of war on people in diagnosis and in the aspect of medical-psychological
various aspects of population migration (Mesa-Vieira et support providing. The developed model of medical-
al., 2022), their mental health, etc. In their opinion, the psychological support of specialists’ professional
experience of war and displacement can have profound activity, which is verified on military-men in war
effects on children’s affective development and mental conditions (Melnyk, Prykhodko, & Stadnik, 2019),
health. However the mechanisms underlying these showed the effectiveness of this approach.
effects remain unknown (Michalek et al., 2022). Traditional methods of psychological, educational,
Current research on post-traumatic stress disorder physical cultural and healthy work can also be an
interventions for children and adolescents affected by effective means of preserving the mental health of
war points to a positive experience. Improved social student youth (Melnyk, 2019). Among the effective
skills were indicated following most interventions. methods of psychological assistance to student youth in
Nevertheless, the paucity of evidence on effective war and martial law conditions, we can recommend using
treatment options for war-affected children and psychological transformation games. In particular, based
adolescents was highlighted (Alzaghoul et al., 2022). on KNUIA, we used the psychological transformation
Our study correlates with the results of the research by game “My Dao”, which proved the effectiveness of the
Veronese et al. (2022) on social support, resilience and applied technique in these conditions (Melnyk & Stadnik,
mental health in low-intensity warfare context among a 2021).
sample of Palestinian university students living on the
Gaza Strip. These researchers note an increase in mental

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