Predeployment Personality Traits and Exposure to Trauma as Predictors of Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms: A Prospective Study of Former Peacekeepers

OBJECTIVE: The authors’ goal was to study the contribution of predeployment personality traits and exposure to traumatic events during deployment to the development of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in individuals involved in military peacekeeping activities.METHOD: Five hundred seventy-two male veterans who participated in the United Nations Protection Force mission in the former Yugoslavia completed a short form of the Dutch MMPI before deployment. Following deployment, they participated in a survey of all Dutch military veterans who had been deployed in the years 1990–1995 and completed the Self-Rating Inventory for PTSD.RESULTS: Exposure to traumatic events during deployment had the highest unique contribution to the prediction of PTSD symptom severity, followed by the personality traits of negativism and psychopathology, followed by age.CONCLUSIONS: Both pretrauma vulnerabilities and exposure to traumatic events were found to be important factors in the etiology of posttraumatic stress symptoms. The current study replicates in a non-American sample of peacekeepers findings obtained among American Vietnam veterans. Particularly, there is accumulating evidence for an etiological role of the personality trait of psychoneuroticism in the development of posttraumatic stress symptoms.