Mental health impaired internationally following the outbreak of war in Ukraine

International team led by Münster researchers studies psychological consequences of the war. Julian Scharbert © Julian Scharbert The outbreak of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine almost two years ago led internationally to a collective downturn in people's sense of well-being - irrespective of age, gender, political views or any other attributes which the people questioned had. However, individual personality traits play a decisive role as regards the issue of recovering from the shock. These are the results of a study carried out by an international team of researchers headed by psychologists Julian Scharbert and Prof. Mitja Back from the University of Münster. The study was based on around 45,000 individual surveys taking in 1,300 people from 17 European countries, with over 50 researchers involved. The results of the study have now been published in the journal "Nature Communications". The study, carried out between late 2021 and summer 2022, made it possible to look at the course of the moods which the interviewees experienced day by day in the weeks surrounding the outbreak of war.