My worry here is that normal people are now fighting in Ukraine, which is totally understandable and heroic, but anyone and everyone gets arms, there is no assessment, no training, it is being described as guerilla warfare, it just really worries me - what is going to happen with these people after the war, what ongoing effects?
@continu I spend most of these threads in awe and not commenting because I don't know enough. I do know a small amount about trauma.
The likelihood is that there will be far-reaching MH consequences as well as obvious shorter term physical disabilities and deaths. However, there's some evidence that fighters with 'right' on their side do better mentally following conflict than those who don't (the worst is to lose with futility like the Americans in Vietnam). The people believing they are defending their homeland do better mentally and have access to much greater social supports. The Russian conscripts are likely to fare much worse mentally, especially if they 'lose'.
Violence still breeds violence though and PTSD is horrible and pernicious.