Amra Zalihic and Dino Zalihic
Health Care Center Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Mostar University, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
War and Suicide. Hauppauge, New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2009, 306 pages.

Some people say that depression feels like a black curtain of despair coming down over their lives. Many people feel like they have no energy and can’t concentrate. Others feel irritable all the time for no apparent reason. The symptoms vary from person to person, but if some person feels “down” for more than two weeks, and these feelings are interfering with his/her daily life, he/she may be clinically depressed[1]. History has shown that the experience of deployment to war can have legacies that manifest themselves in a variety of physical and psychological health problems [2,3]. It is widely recognised that exposure to combat and other wartime experiences can have both short-term and long-term psychological effects [4]. War related imprisonment has been shown as a stressful event associated with the exhibition of higher rates and greater intensity of posttraumatic stress reactions, compared with war veterans who were not imprisoned. This indicates that wartime captivity produces stress residuals of considerable depth, range and persistence [5]. There is a strong indication that stressor characteristics influence the variety and number of exhibited intrusive, avoidance and arousal symptoms. Victims of rape tended to present with more avoidance symptoms and fewer hyperarousal symptoms, whereas former prisoners and veterans tended to report more hyperarousal symptoms. Rape victims and former prisoners also reported more symptoms than the other groups[5]. Groups suffering different types of trauma may show similarities in psychological dimensions of depression [5]. The prevalence of psychological effects after conflict suggest that traumatic exposure and resultant symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression can influence social functioning and how individuals perceive mechanisms aimed at promoting justice and reconciliation, such as amnesties, criminal trials, and truth commissions [6]. More than 90% of completed suicides are associated with mental or addictive disorders. These disorders provide the major context for suicide and suicidal behavior [7].