Development and Standardization of Military Stress Inventory (MSI)

Abstract

Over the years, the Nigerian Military has participated in many peace keeping operations throughout the world. In each of these cases, the men of the Armed Forces who participated in these operations were never evaluated or screened both before and after the operations to determine their psychological state with regard to their stress levels. The impact of stress on military personnel is a known fact. In view of the highly stressful nature of military operations, this study is to develop an instrument that could screen those soldiers who might be proned to stress before operation and also to evaluate the stress levels of those who have returned after military operations. In the Development and Standardisation of Military Stress Inventory (MSI) an item pool created from a list of situations related to military operation and profession was used to obtain 36 item inventory which was administered to 600 participants made up 150 Army, 150 Navy, 150 Air Force personnel and 150 Civilians (not working in any military setting). A total mean score for MSI of 89.30 with a standard deviation of 24.13 was obtained. The mean score and standard deviation for military personnel was 88.71 and 22.08 respectively. Analyzing data with Cronbach alpha, Guttman’s split-half and Pearson Product Moment statistics, the reliability coefficients, both coefficient alpha and split-half range in the 80’s. The concurrent validity of MSI is satisfactory with .64. The results were discussed in terms of how the development of MSI met the objective of the study. The values of MSI in detecting stress in military personnel were highlighted.

Key words: Development, Disorder, Distress, Extracted factors, Inventory, Military, Post traumatic, Soldier, Standardization, Stress.