Manifest Anxiety of Vietnam Returnees and Undergraduates

Symptoms ranging from insomnia to psychosis are common among military personnel returning from combat areas ( 3 ) . From 1965 to 1966 an estimated 5 % of medical evaluations were patients with neuropsychiatric illness ( 6 ) . Community psych~atric out-patient clinics, community mental health clinics, and university counseling centers are obselving symptoms such as an increased use of alcohol and drugs, violent outbursts, impulsive activity, and insomnia in some Vietnam returnees. These psychiatric symptoms may be accompanied in some Vietnam returnees by an elevation in manifest anxiety, a directly observable behavioral state where defensive reactions provide the avenue for inferring the presence of internal anxiety (4) . The present study determined whether the level of manifest anxiety of a sample of Vietnam combat veterans was significantly different from that of a control group of undergraduate students without military experience. The Manifest Anxiety Scale ( 4 ) was originally developed to differentiate bemeen drive levels of various Ss. While the test was not constructed for clinical diagnosis o f manifest anxiety, several studies (1, 2 ) suggest significant correlates between overt behavior and MAS scores. The samples were 7 3 male Ss who had recently returned from active duty in Vietnam and randomly selected undergraduate male Ss. The average length of time on active duty in Vietnam for the veteran sample was 11.9 mo., with this service occurring approximately between November, 1969 and November, 1970. The mean age and time since recurn from Vietnam were 22.1 yr. and 33.7 days respectively; 33% of the veterans were wounded while on actual duty. These veterans represented Vietnam returnees who were to report to Fort Riley, Kansas, on December 15-17, 1970, for post-Vietnam assignment. The veterans were administered the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory which was scored for manifest anxiety ( 5 ) . T o obtain Taylor anxiety scores from the control group, the 50 Taylor scale anxiety items were administered along with 50 additional items randomly selected from the MIMPI. The variances of the scores on the Taylor anxiety scale were obtained for borh groups, and the resultant F test indicated that rhere was no significant difference in the variances of the groups ( F = 1.06, fi > .05 with Sv.t.% 74.65 and S.tUdentB2 = 79.21), therefore, a t test which assumed equal variances was deemed appropriate. When applied to the mean anxiety scores of the Vietnam returnees (15.95) and those of the student sample (17.79) there was no significant difference ( t = 1.26, fi > .05) . A subsample of 24 Vietnam returnees who were wounded during combat had a mean Taylor anxiety score of 15.54 ( 1 = 1.06, p > .05) . Data indicate that the sample of Vietnam returnees did nor have higher levels of anxiety on the Taylor anxiety scale than an undergraduate sample unless responding was influenced by differential administration of test items.