Clinical trial NCT06996275: Attachment and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Military Personnel: Characterization of the French Military Population, Exploration of Biopsychosocial Factors, and Study of the Impact of Security Priming on Emotional Contagion Capacities
Official title: Attachment and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Military Personnel: Characterisation of the French Military Population, Exploration of Biopsychosocial Factors and Study of the Impact of Reassuring Primers on Emotional Contagion Skills.
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
Conditions: Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Emotional Contagion
Keywords: PTSD
complex PTSD
military veteran
emotional contagion
oxytocin
vasopressine
Lead sponsor: Direction Centrale du Service de Santé des Armées
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2025-05-30
Enrollment: 94
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 65
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: CASE_CONTROL
Time perspective: CROSS_SECTIONAL
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: No-PTSD Group: Military personnel without PTSD will be recruited from within an infantry regiment of the army.

PTSD Group: Military personnel with PTSD will be recruited during workshops conducted by the CABAT (Cellule d'Aide aux Blessés de l'Armée de Terre - Army Wounded Support Unit) in 2025 and 2026.

Brief summary: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a pathology that impairs the quality of life of sufferers. In military personnel, it can lead to military incapacity. This psychopathology is characterized by confrontation with one or more traumatic events in the individual's life history. Symptoms include cognitive and mood disorders, avoidance, hyperactivation (hypervigilance and anger) and intrusions (flashbacks and nightmares).

Studies show that the prevalence of PTSD in military personnel fluctuates considerably from one situation to another (pre-deployment/post-deployment, etc.). In these at-risk populations, the often more complex PTSD clinic may also account for the heterogeneity of prevalences observed. Nevertheless, PTSD tends to become chronic in military personnel, making it particularly difficult to return to a "previous" state. In French casualties, beyond the symptoms already mentioned, complaints focus on difficulties in social interaction situations involving others in social life (attachment style to others) and in everyday life (public transport, supermarket shopping, social interactions, presence of crowds...).

In the context of post-traumatic stress disorder, we would like to explore the processes of social cognition that enable people to interact in their environment, in relation to biological, psychosocial and physiological variables that may constitute risk or maintenance factors for the pathology.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

Inclusion Criteria Common to Both Groups:

* Volunteers who agreed to participate in the study and provided written consent
* Affiliated with social security
* Proficient in the French language

Inclusion Criteria Specific to the "Military Personnel with PTSD" Group:

* Military personnel diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder related to their duties
* Participants in activities offered by the wounded service support units

Exclusion Criteria:

* Adults subject to a protective measure
* Refusal to participate in the study
* Unrectified Legionnaires

Primary outcomes:
measure: To characterize attachment styles within a military population by comparing a group of military personnel without PTSD (No-PTSD Group) with a group of military personnel with PTSD (PTSD Group).
timeFrame: One visit study
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
Study officials:
affiliation: Institut de Recherche Biomédicale des Armées
name: Anaïs Duffaud, PhD
role: STUDY_DIRECTOR
References: