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Biomedical subjects

Z Solomon

Publications and source records attributed to Z Solomon.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1996

Post-traumatic stress disorder in brain injury patients.

In the absence of the recognition of the emotional sequelae following traumatic brain injury (TBI), many patients are deprived of adequate treatment. The purpose of the current study is to evaluate the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and explore the clinical picture among TBI patients. Twenty four outpatients with diagnosed head injuries following various traumas filled out standardized questionnaires, assessing post-traumatic residuals. Thirty-three per cent of these patients met criteria for PTSD diagnosis. The clinical picture of PTSD following TBI is somewhat distinguished from those following other traumatic events. Issues concerning the specific nature of the syndrome following TBI, and the difficulties in differentiating between PTSD and postconcussive syndrome, are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Seven-year follow-up of child survivors of a bus-train collision.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the long-term effects of a traumatic bus-train collision and to examine the effect of levels of exposure and immediate reactions on long-term adjustment. METHOD: Seven years after the accident, 389 subjects, all doing compulsory army service, filled out self-report questionnaires assessing symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychiatric symptomatology, and military functioning. In addition, subjects were questioned about their immediate reactions to the traumatic event. RESULTS: The most highly exposed subjects reported the highest levels of somatization, depression, phobic anxiety, and psychoticism and more PTSD symptoms. Acute stress symptoms and manifestations of fear immediately after the accident were strongly related to long-term maladjustment CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the investigation and assessment of long-term adjustment after traumatic events should take into account both contextual factors, such as the level of exposure to the event, and personal factors, such as the victims' immediate reactions.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed1996

Lessons denied: a history of therapeutic response to combat stress reaction during Israel's War of Independence (1948), the Sinai Campaign (1956) and the Six Day War (1967)

The current article examines the history of therapeutic response in the Israel Defense Forces toward combat stress reaction during two decades, and in the course of three wars: the 1948 War of Independence, the 1956 Sinai Campaign, and the 1967 Six Day War. Three independent sources were used: recorded debriefing materials; interviews conducted with therapists, commanders and military historians; and professional literature on the wars in Hebrew and other languages. The collected material is described and issues of attitudes, treatment approaches and preparedness are discussed.

Combat Disorders↗
PubMed1996

Lessons relearned--when denial becomes impossible: therapeutic response to combat stress reaction during the Yom Kippur War (1973), the Lebanon War (1982) and the Intifada.

This article presents the attitudes toward CSR during and after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1982 Lebanon War and the Intifada. It analyzes the transition from denial to recognition which evolved following the Yom Kippur War. Several explanations are suggested and discussed, including structural, political and psychoanalytic perspectives.

Combat Disorders↗
PubMed1996

Knesset members' attitudes towards combat stress reaction casualties.

The current study examines the attitudes of Israeli Parliament (Knesset) members towards CSR. More specifically, it explores the effect of political affiliation and background variables on the perception of etiology, policy and treatment of CSR casualties. Knesset members (N = 69) filled out questionnaires querying their attitudes towards CSR and their background. Results indicated that while most Knesset members attributed CSR to external factors, those affiliated with the right wing considered internal causes more relevant than those on the left. Moreover, while Knesset members did not differ in the distance from the CSR casualty and in attitudes towards treatment approaches, they did differ in their views of the social restrictions that should be imposed on the casualties. The implication of background variables, mainly ideology and personal encounter with casualties in attitudes towards CSR is discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

[Long-term stress residuals in former prisoners of the Yom Kippur War].

This study examines long-term adjustment following war captivity. 164 former prisoners-of-war (POWs) and 189 other combatants of the Yom Kippur War (1973) filled out a battery of questionnaires, assessing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), trauma-related intrusive and avoidance tendencies, psychiatric symptomatology, and social functioning. Almost 2 decades after the war, 13% of former POWs suffer from diagnosed PTSD. Moreover, long-term residuals of war captivity are not limited to trauma-specific disorders. Former POWs reported more severe psychiatric symptomatology and more problems in functioning than the other combatants.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1995

From denial to recognition: attitudes toward Holocaust survivors from World War II to the present.

This paper discusses the complex attitudes of Israeli society and mental health professionals toward the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. While the nascent state of Israel provided refuge for the Holocaust survivors and offered them a new identity and opportunity to rebuild their lives, it also demanded that they abnegate their former identities, their Holocaust experiences above all, and repress all the emotional problems that the Holocaust created. In the nearly 5 decades since the first survivors arrived on Israel's shores with their accounts of barely imaginable horror, society's attitudes toward the survivors have traced a tortured course, throughout which the views of the helping professions have mirrored, rather than led, those of the general public. This paper describes the process of change in attitudes and attempts to explain this process.

Attitude↗
PubMed1995

Attitudes of therapists toward Holocaust survivors.

This study examined current feelings and attitudes toward Holocaust survivors in a sample of 205 Israeli mental health professionals. Subjects were asked to read two vignettes each describing an aged trauma victim who had recently applied for treatment. The first vignette presented a Holocaust survivor and the second a war veteran. The two "patients" were otherwise similar in background and clinical picture. After reading each vignette, subjects were asked to report their feelings toward the patient. Subjects also completed a detailed questionnaire that assessed attitudes on several issues related to the Holocaust. Feelings toward the Holocaust survivor were found to be more intense and more positive than feelings toward the combat veteran. Therapists' attitudes toward Holocaust survivors were also found to be highly and consistently positive. Compared to previous reports, they appear to reflect a change of heart in relation to the past. Therapist background variables were not found to play a major role in determining attitudes toward Holocaust survivors.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Diagnosis and treatment of combat stress reaction: current attitudes of military physicians.

This study examined the attitudes of 203 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military physicians regarding the causes and treatment of combat stress reaction. The findings indicate that subjects tended primarily to endorse situational rather than predispositional explanations for the causation of the CSR. They attributed the highest levels of responsibility for treatment to the frontline physician and to commanders, and the least amount of responsibility to the casualty himself. These findings suggest that military physicians do not hold CSR casualties responsible for the causation or the treatment of the stress reaction. CSR is now viewed within the "medical model." It is considered by doctors to be within the purview of medicine and CSR casualties are considered legitimate objects of medical concern. The stigma attached to the phenomenon in the past thus appears to have diminished considerably.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Mental health officers' causal explanations of combat stress reaction.

This study examined causal attributions for combat stress reaction (CSR) among 117 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) mental health officers. The impact of case characteristics (the level of objective stress in the situation, reaction of others in the same situation, soldier's previous functioning, and type of symptomatology) and respondent characteristics (professional affiliation, therapeutic orientation) on these attributions was also examined. Results show that mental health officers view CSR primarily as a response to external circumstances; it is not generally seen as resulting from personality traits or intrapsychic processes. Findings also indicate that causal attributions were influenced at least to some degree by the clinicians' professional affiliation, their therapeutic orientation, and their knowledge of the casualty's prior functioning.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Oscillating between denial and recognition of PTSD: why are lessons learned and forgotten?

Consistent observations suggest that denial of PTSD and blaming of its victims are not isolated omissions or distortions but a pattern that spans over time, crosses national and cultural boundaries, and defies accumulated knowledge. This article traces the origins of these attitudes and offers three explanations: (a) mental health professionals are unable to transcend prevailing cultural and social norms; (b) they are "blinded" by professional theories; and (c) denial may stem from a fundamental human difficulty in comprehending and acknowledging our own vulnerability.

Anxiety↗
PubMed1995

The effect of prior stressful experience on coping with war trauma and captivity.

The study assessed the implications of childhood life events, Holocaust background, combat experiences, war captivity and negative post-captivity life events in the mental status of ex-POWs (164) and comparable controls (184), 18 years after the war. Findings confirm the association between stressful life events in the course of the life span and five outcomes: PTSD, intrusion and avoidance tendencies, psychiatric symptomatology, and impaired social functioning. Different life events have different effects. War captivity made the strongest contribution to all dependent variables.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1995

Correlates of war-induced stress responses among late middle-aged and elderly Israelis.

Over a period of six weeks in the winter of 1991, Israel was exposed to hostile enemy actions unlike any others in its history. In the Gulf War, civilians were front-line targets for Scud missiles which fell in the heart of the country's most heavily populated areas. One hundred and sixty-four late middle-aged and elderly Israelis were interviewed with respect to their emotional and behavioral reactions. Subjective health, gender, and attribution of meaning were the most significant variables, explaining most of the variance in the two measures of response. Satisfaction with informal network effectiveness was a relatively strong predictor of change in the affective distress variable. Degree of religious commitment and chronological age were weak but significant predictors of affective distress and social interaction distress respectively. Location of residence in relation to the missile impact zone was of no significance in explaining variance in the dependent measures. The findings are discussed in light of the uniquely subjective, interpretive context of stress phenomena, and the need to identify those variables that explain individual differences among older adults in their responses to stress.

Aged↗
PubMed1995

Psychological profile of help-seeking and non-help-seeking tinnitus patients.

The psychological profile of tinnitus patients who sought treatment (Help-Seeking, HS) was compared with that of patients who did not seek help (non-help-seeking, NHS) and with normal control subjects. Psychological evaluations as well as hearing, tinnitus loudness, and tinnitus pitch were measured. Overall, the psychiatric symptomatology of HS (n = 50) was more severe with poorer effective coping abilities and externalization of locus of control than NHS (n - 50). However, the psychiatric symptomatology of the NHS was remarkably more severe than that in the normals (n = 73) and more like that in the HS even though they did not turn to treatment. Tinnitus loudness was significantly lower in HS than in NHS subjects. The lower the tinnitus loudness, the higher the psychiatric symptomatology. The trend towards subclinical abnormalities in NHS indicates their vulnerability to pathology and this requires the attention of the therapist in order to increase the patient's self-awareness and to suggest preventive coping strategies or relaxation techniques.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1995

Clinical characteristics of delayed and immediate-onset combat-induced post-traumatic stress disorder.

The aim of the current study is to examine the clinical characteristics of war-related disturbances among veterans with delayed and immediate-onset post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One hundred twenty-five veterans who sought help for war-related disturbances, 8 years after the 1982 Lebanon War, filled out the PTSD Inventory, Impact of Event Scale, and SCL-90. Their scores were compared with those of 370 treated combat stress reaction casualties who filled out the questionnaires a year after the same war. Findings indicate that veterans from the delayed-helpseeking group suffer from a higher rate (92 vs. 59%) and a greater intensity of PTSD, more intrusive tendencies, and more severe general psychiatric symptomatology than those of the immediate-helpseeking group. These findings indicate that a fair number of combatants still seek help for war-related disturbances almost a decade after the war. The complex relationship between delayed-helpseeking and delayed-onset PTSD is discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

[Implication of compensation in recovery from combat-induced post-traumatic stress disorder].

The effect of compensation payment on long-term adjustment of soldiers with war-induced psychic trauma was studied. 2 groups of combat stress reaction casualties of the 1982 Lebanon War were examined: 109 casualties had been recognized by the Ministry of Defence as eligible for benefits, while 111 casualties had not applied for compensation benefits. Data were collected from their IDF medical charts and computerized personal records, from clinical data collected by IDF clinicians, and by mail and telephone surveys. Results indicated that the groups were quite similar in social functioning before the war. However, in those compensated there was more distress and impaired functioning following the war and at follow-up. The role of compensation in recovery from war-induced psychic trauma is discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗