Bulletin of Vasyl' Stus Donetsk National University.
Series of Psychological Sciences

The full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 precipitated the largest humanitarian and forced displacement crisis in Europe since the Second World War, exposing millions of civilians to continuous bombardment, sudden bereavement, and abrupt cross-border or internal migration. Grounded in Hobfoll's Conservation of Resources (COR) theory and Horowitz's impact-of-event paradigm, this foundational empirical study investigates the prevalence and structural severity of acute stress reactions, generalized anxiety, and traumatic grief symptoms among civilian populations during the initial hundred days of war. A nationwide multi-site convenience sample of 680 adult respondents (452 females, 228 males; aged 18–72 years) evacuated from active combat zones or sheltering in high-threat metropolitan centers completed the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), the Stanford Acute Stress Reaction Questionnaire (SASRQ), and a multidimensional resource loss inventory. Quantitative analyses revealed that 76.4% of respondents exhibited clinically significant acute stress symptomatology exceeding diagnostic thresholds, with hyperarousal, intrusive wartime imagery, and acute existential disorientation representing the most pervasive symptom clusters. Hierarchical regression models demonstrated that objective exposure severity (direct proximity to shelling, structural destruction of home) combined with perceived loss of social and material resources accounted for 58.2% of the variance in acute traumatic distress ($p < 0.001$). Furthermore, cross-border refugees reported elevated survivor guilt and temporal disorientation compared to internally displaced persons, whereas those remaining in frontline cities manifested higher emotional numbness. The authors propose an immediate stepped-care psychological triage and psychological first aid (PFA) protocol tailored for emergency community shelters.

The frequent activation of air-raid sirens and mandatory subterranean sheltering in underground metro stations, basements, and bomb shelters during 2022 created unique socio-spatial microenvironments wherein diverse, unacquainted civilians were forced into prolonged physical confinement under life-threatening conditions. Drawing upon Rimé's theory of social sharing of emotion and Le Bon's crowd psychology reformulated through modern intergroup emotion frameworks, this observational and survey-based study examines the psychological dynamics of collective emotional contagion, panic mitigation, and emergent social solidarity in wartime shelters. Data were collected through structured field observations and self-report surveys administered to 340 sheltered adults across Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia during heavy missile strike alerts. Instruments included the State Anxiety Inventory, the Perceived Collective Efficacy Scale, and a newly developed Shelter Social Climate Inventory. Results indicated that while the initial entry phase into shelters was frequently characterized by acute physiological hyperarousal and hyper-vigilant scanning, the stabilization of the shelter atmosphere depended heavily on emergent informal leadership and behavioral micro-ritualization (such as collective singing, shared quiet conversation, distributing hot beverages, and organizing children's activities). Shelters that established structured communal tasks and democratic spatial zoning exhibited significantly lower panic contagion and somatic anxiety scores ($p < 0.001$) compared to disorganized, overcrowded environments. Guidelines for psychological self-regulation and community leadership in subterranean shelters are formulated.

Military chaplains and frontline humanitarian volunteers operating directly within active combat zones occupy an extraordinary psychological niche, providing continuous moral, spiritual, and psychosocial accompaniment to soldiers and endangered civilians while being personally exposed to extreme physical hazard and cumulative trauma. Grounded in Frankl's logotherapy and Pargament's psychology of religion and coping, this empirical study investigates the spiritual and existential mechanisms sustaining psychological resilience and preventing secondary traumatic burnout among 142 military chaplains and 186 frontline civilian volunteers surveyed between March and August 2022. Assessment batteries included the Purpose-in-Life Test (PIL), the Brief RCOPE (positive and negative religious coping), the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL-5), and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that reliance on positive religious coping (spiritual connectedness, benevolent religious reappraisal, and communal ritual) and self-transcendent altruistic motives were powerful positive predictors of compassion satisfaction and resilience ($\beta = 0.53, p < 0.001$), effectively buffering against severe secondary traumatic stress despite extreme workloads. Conversely, individuals who experienced spiritual doubt or utilized negative religious coping ("feeling abandoned by God") exhibited high vulnerability to existential despair and somatic exhaustion. The study underscores the necessity of integrating spiritual resilience frameworks into psychological support programs for wartime humanitarian personnel.

Children exposed to military shelling, structural destruction of homes, and terrifying evacuation journeys frequently manifest severe pediatric trauma symptoms, including regressive behaviors, separation anxiety, elective mutism, and traumatic play reenactment. Because young children lack mature verbal-conceptual networks to process catastrophic terror, expressive nonverbal modalities serve as an essential therapeutic conduit. This clinical-intervention study evaluates the effectiveness of a structured 10-session trauma-informed expressive arts and play therapy protocol ("Creative Shield") administered to displaced children residing in temporary reception centers in western and central Ukraine. A clinical sample of 96 children (aged 6–11 years) exhibiting elevated trauma symptoms was assigned to either an art-therapy intervention group ($n = 48$) or a waitlist control group ($n = 48$). Pre- and post-intervention assessments utilized the Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES-13), the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), and standardized behavioral codings of projective drawings (Kinetic Family Drawings and "Tree of Life" prompts). Repeated-measures ANOVA demonstrated statistically significant reductions in intrusion, avoidance, and total trauma scores ($F = 48.3, p < 0.001$) within the intervention cohort compared to controls. Qualitative semiotic analysis of children's artwork documented a progressive transition from chaotic, dark, explosive imagery toward integrated, hopeful narratives featuring safe shelters and restored agency. Practical guidelines for establishing child-friendly spaces in humanitarian hubs are provided.

The rapid mobilization of volunteer Territorial Defense Forces in 2022 introduced thousands of civilian recruits into active combat zones with minimal prior military psychological conditioning, underscoring the urgent necessity for decentralized, frontline-embedded psychological intervention frameworks. Adapted from Nash's Combat Stress First Aid (CSFA) model and military operational stress control principles, this study evaluates the implementation and operational efficacy of peer-led CSFA training programs in mitigating acute stress injuries and preventing operational exhaustion among frontline infantry units. A quasi-experimental field study was conducted across ten Territorial Defense battalions ($N = 410$ service members), comparing five battalions where junior commanders and designated peers received intensive 3-day CSFA instruction (focusing on the "Continuum of Care" stress model, tactical calming, and buddy-aid stabilization) against five control battalions receiving standard briefings. Longitudinal tracking over four months of active combat rotation demonstrated that units with trained CSFA peer-support networks reported a 41% lower incidence of chronic operational fatigue and evacuated significantly fewer soldiers for stress casualties, successfully stabilizing acute reactions at the company level ($p < 0.001$). Qualitative interviews with combat medics confirmed that destigmatizing stress reactions as normal operational "injuries" rather than personal weakness fundamentally enhanced psychological safety and early help-seeking under fire.

The constant, real-time monitoring of military Telegram channels, news feeds, and casualty reports—colloquially termed wartime "doomscrolling" or informational hyper-vigilance—became a pervasive compulsive survival strategy for civilians residing in relatively safe rear regions during 2022. Grounded in the Monitor-Blunting coping model and activation theories of physiological arousal, this study investigates how compulsive news consumption interacts with perceived physical safety to predict sleep fragmentation, autonomic hyperarousal, and somatization among rear-area civilians. A sample of 382 adults residing in western and central Ukraine completed the Problematic News Consumption Scale, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Somatic Symptom Scale (SSS-8), and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Structural equation modeling revealed that daily screen time dedicated to unverified or graphic war news exceeded 4.5 hours on average and directly predicted severe sleep-onset latency and nocturnal awakenings ($\beta = 0.51, p < 0.001$). Paradoxically, individuals who utilized compulsive news-checking to alleviate feelings of helplessness and maintain illusory control over environmental threats experienced a paradoxical escalation in autonomic hyperarousal and chronic fatigue. The authors establish digital hygiene guidelines and cognitive boundaries for informational self-regulation during prolonged national crises.

The mass cross-border exodus of Ukrainian women and children following the 2022 invasion resulted in millions of transnational family formations wherein mothers and minors resided as refugees across European Union host states while spouses and fathers remained behind in Ukraine due to mobilization laws. Grounded in Boss's theory of ambiguous loss and Berry's acculturative stress model, this empirical study examines the psychological adaptation, parenting strain, and acculturative distress experienced by refugee mothers. A multinational survey of 310 refugee mothers residing in Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic was conducted using the Riverside Acculturation Stress Scale (RASS), the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF), the UCLA Loneliness Scale, and semi-structured qualitative interviews regarding transnational spousal communication. Empirical findings demonstrated that 64.2% of mothers experienced clinical-level parenting stress driven by the simultaneous demands of solo parenting in an unfamiliar linguistic-cultural environment, fear for the safety of husbands remaining in Ukraine, and economic precarity. Digital communication apps maintained marital connection but frequently generated "virtual intrusion" friction and emotional exhaustion. Mothers who successfully integrated into local language courses and established mutual support pods with other refugee families exhibited significantly lower acculturative depression. Recommendations for transnational psychological support networks are discussed.

The massive surge in trauma exposure across both military and civilian populations following the 2022 wartime escalation necessitated ultra-brief, highly accurate psychometric screening instruments capable of rapid deployment in primary care, emergency medical stations, and humanitarian triage centers. This methodological study presents the Ukrainian linguistic adaptation, wartime item analysis, and psychometric validation of Prins et al.'s Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5 (PC-PTSD-5) and the accompanying Life Events Checklist for DSM-5 (LEC-5). Following rigorous forward-backward translation and expert committee review, psychometric evaluation was conducted on a high-exposure sample of 540 Ukrainian adults (310 displaced civilians, 130 combat veterans, and 100 frontline medical workers; aged 18–68 years) evaluated between April and July 2022. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) demonstrated excellent unidimensional model fit for the 5-item PC-PTSD-5 ($\chi^2/\text{df} = 1.84, \text{CFI} = 0.982, \text{TLI} = 0.976, \text{RMSEA} = 0.039$), with high internal consistency ($\alpha = 0.89, \omega = 0.90$). Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis against comprehensive clinician-administered gold-standard diagnostic interviews (CAPS-5) established an optimal cut-off score of $\ge 3$, yielding high sensitivity (0.89) and specificity (0.86) for identifying wartime PTSD. The adapted instruments are provided for immediate clinical and humanitarian deployment.

Despite the catastrophic destruction and profound personal losses inflicted by the ongoing war through late 2022, psychological observations across Ukraine revealed an extraordinary surge in collective cohesion, civic solidarity, and paradoxical reports of personal and communal resilience. Drawing upon Tedeschi and Calhoun's post-traumatic growth paradigm and Reicher and Haslam's social identity approach to collective stress, this empirical study investigates the relationship between national identity consolidation, perceived social support, and Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) among Ukrainian citizens after ten months of full-scale war. A nationwide sample of 450 adult respondents completed the Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), a validated National Identity and Civic Pride Scale, and Antonovsky's Sense of Coherence Scale. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that civic engagement, active participation in volunteer networks, and a strong sense of shared national identity accounted for 49.1% of the variance in overall PTG scores ($p < 0.001$). Respondents who framed their personal suffering within a broader narrative of collective national defense and historical resistance reported significantly higher appreciation of life, strengthened interpersonal solidarity, and spiritual deepening compared to those who experienced isolated, unshared trauma. The findings highlight that collective psychological resilience functions not merely as an individual trait, but as a shared social product anchored in mutual aid and civic purpose.

The rising number of severe combat trauma survivors sustaining limb amputations, polytrauma, and severe disfigurement in 2022 necessitated specialized multidisciplinary rehabilitation programs integrating surgical prosthetics with intensive psychological adaptation. Grounded in Cash's body image adaptation model and Engel's biopsychosocial framework, this clinical study examines the psychological predictors of successful prosthetic rehabilitation, phantom limb pain (PLP) management, and identity reconstruction among 114 hospitalized military amputees. Diagnostic instruments included the Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ), the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and semi-structured interviews evaluating functional adjustment to assistive devices. Empirical results indicated that severe phantom limb pain and high pain catastrophizing were primary drivers of clinical depression and delayed prosthetic acceptance ($p < 0.001$). Crucially, psychological interventions combining mirror therapy with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) principles—aimed at reducing experiential avoidance of the altered body schema and reframing prosthetic devices as tools of restored autonomy rather than symbols of mutilation—significantly accelerated rehabilitation milestones. The authors outline an integrated clinical psychology protocol for military surgical hospitals.

Beginning in October 2022, systematic missile strikes targeting Ukraine's critical energy infrastructure precipitated widespread, prolonged winter power outages, heating failures, and water disconnections across major metropolitan areas, subjecting urban populations to severe cold-stress and chronic environmental deprivation. Drawing upon Lazarus and Folkman's transactional model of stress and Maddi's hardiness paradigm, this empirical study investigates the psychological coping strategies and hardiness profiles that enabled urban residents to maintain emotional stability during prolonged winter blackouts. A sample of 346 adult residents from Kyiv, Lviv, and Dnipro completed Maddi's Personal View Survey (measuring Commitment, Control, and Challenge), the Coping Flexibility Questionnaire, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), and a custom inventory assessing domestic preparedness and resource adaptation. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that high dispositional hardiness—specifically the "control" and "challenge" subcomponents—accounted for 43.7% of the variance in adaptive coping (problem-solving, resource sharing with neighbors, micro-climate organization) versus helpless panic ($p < 0.001$). Respondents who reframed infrastructural blackouts as a temporary logistical challenge rather than a catastrophic existential collapse exhibited significantly lower somatic anxiety and depressive fatigue. Community-level psychological recommendations for organizing neighborhood mutual aid hubs during utility crises are presented.

The continuation of secondary education through remote and asynchronous digital platforms across active and frontline regions throughout 2022 presented profound psychological challenges for educators, students, and parents navigating power outages, air-raid interruptions, and displacement. Grounded in Luthar's educational resilience framework and self-determination theory, this study investigates the psychological and organizational factors sustaining academic engagement and teacher well-being under extreme educational disruptions. Survey and interview data were collected from 220 secondary school teachers and 310 high school students across Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Kyiv oblasts using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaire, and a custom evaluation of digital pedagogical adaptation. Empirical findings indicated extreme levels of emotional exhaustion among teachers operating in frontline zones (71.3% exceeding clinical burnout thresholds), driven by the dual burden of managing personal physical safety while delivering trauma-informed online instruction to dispersed students. However, teachers who prioritized asynchronous flexibility, minimized rigid grading pressures, and created empathetic peer check-in circles preserved significantly higher student intrinsic motivation and academic persistence ($p < 0.001$). Guidelines for psychological support in wartime digital classrooms are outlined.

While military suicide rates during armed conflict have been extensively studied, civilian suicide risk and acute suicidal ideation among populations trapped under siege or persistent artillery bombardment in 2022 represent a critical yet under-researched clinical phenomenon. Drawing upon Joiner's Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (ITPS)—specifically the roles of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness—this clinical study examines the psychological risk factors precipitating suicidal ideation among 118 civilian adults evacuated from besieged eastern localities. Retrospective and clinical interview data collected by crisis psychologists at reception centers utilized the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS), the Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire (INQ), and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). Regression analyses demonstrated that perceived burdensomeness ("my family would be better off without me draining their evacuation resources") and severe thwarted belongingness accounted for 53.4% of the variance in acute suicidal ideation severity ($p < 0.001$). Unlike peacetime depression, wartime suicidal crisis was frequently triggered by the sudden destruction of social support networks and profound loss of functional agency. The authors formulate specialized tele-crisis intervention protocols for remote psychological hotlines operating in war zones.

The experience of unprovoked military aggression and severe human rights violations fundamentally transforms interpersonal and intergroup moral emotions, rendering traditional psychological models of interpersonal forgiveness and reconciliation clinically complex. Grounded in Enright's process model of forgiveness and Nadler's intergroup reconciliation framework, this empirical study investigates the psychological correlates of unforgiveness, moral outrage, and retributive justice attitudes among 324 civilian respondents who suffered direct property destruction or personal injury during 2022. Assessment tools included the Heartland Forgiveness Scale, the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM-18), a custom Wartime Moral Outrage Scale, and measures of psychological trauma severity. Empirical results demonstrated that revenge motivations and unforgiveness were robustly correlated with PTSD intrusion symptom severity ($r = 0.61, p < 0.001$), functioning as an ongoing source of emotional exhaustion. However, structural equation modeling revealed that premature demands for forgiveness or reconciliation in the active phase of wartime trauma were experienced by survivors as invalidating secondary victimization. Authentic psychological relief was achieved not through premature reconciliation, but through legal justice, accountability, and the processing of moral outrage within supportive community contexts. Theoretical implications for transitional justice and trauma therapy are discussed.

The unprecedented socio-psychological conditions of 2022 created an urgent scientific demand for indigenous, psychometrically robust diagnostic instruments capable of capturing community-level resilience, mutual aid dynamics, and existential well-being under wartime duress. This methodological study presents the development, factor structure verification, and psychometric standardization of the 20-item Wartime Community Resilience Scale (WCRS). Following expert Delphi panel generation and pilot testing across diverse displaced and resident cohorts, psychometric evaluation was conducted on a nationwide sample of 780 Ukrainian adults (502 females, 278 males; aged 18–75 years) evaluated between October and December 2022. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using robust maximum likelihood estimation confirmed a robust four-factor oblique structure: Mutual Aid and Social Support, Collective Efficacy and Problem-Solving, National Identity Solidarity, and Existential Optimism ($\chi^2/\text{df} = 2.12, \text{CFI} = 0.965, \text{TLI} = 0.958, \text{RMSEA} = 0.038, \text{SRMR} = 0.034$). Internal consistency reliability was excellent (overall Cronbach's $\alpha = 0.93$, McDonald's $\omega = 0.94$). Convergent and discriminant validity were established against the CD-RISC-10, PSS-10, and GHQ-12. Standardized normative percentile and stanine tables are provided for clinical and sociological screening in wartime research.