Mental Health Impacts of War and Crisis
Summary
Armed conflict and humanitarian crises exert profound and multifaceted effects on psychological well-being. Exposure to violence, displacement, loss of homes and livelihoods, and uncertainty about the future elevate rates of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder across affected populations. Vulnerable groups—including refugees, children, older adults and front-line personnel—often exhibit more severe symptoms, while social disruption erodes community support networks. Economic hardship and disrupted access to care compound distress, and media coverage of hostilities can provoke secondary trauma even in distant regions. Nonetheless, adaptive processes such as resilience, community solidarity and culturally sensitive coping strategies can mitigate long-term dysfunction. Emerging research highlights the importance of integrating mental health support into emergency response, strengthening health systems, and deploying remote interventions to reach displaced and underserved groups. A global perspective is essential: crises in one region may reverberate through migration, geopolitical tension and economic instability, underscoring the need for coordinated international action to preserve psychological health in the face of war and disaster.
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Mental Health Impacts of War and Crisis publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in mental health impacts of war and crisis across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Generalised Anxiety Disorder: A chronic condition characterised by excessive, uncontrollable worry across multiple life domains.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: A psychiatric disorder arising after exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violence, marked by intrusive memories, avoidance and hyperarousal.
Nuclear anxiety: Distress driven specifically by fear of nuclear conflict and its perceived likelihood and consequences.
Resilience: The dynamic capacity to adapt to adversity, maintain psychological well-being and recover from traumatic experiences.
References
- Anxiety, depressive symptoms, and distress over the course of the war in Ukraine in three federal states in Germany. Frontiers in Psychiatry (2023).
- Nuclear Anxiety Amid the Russian-Ukrainian War 2022 (RUW-22): Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2023).
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