Tattoo and Personality Traits in Croatian Veterans

To examine whether tattooed patients, treated for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by war at the Ward for Psycho-trauma of the Clinical Hospital Osijek, differ from non-tattooed patients by certain personality traits.

The study was conducted on one hundred Croatian veterans who were divided into two groups with respect to the presence/absence of tattoo. To assess the symptoms of PTSD, the Clinical Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS-2) was used for all subjects. To assess personality traits the following psychology tests were applied: Purdue non-verbal IQ test, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-1), and Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire (EPQ/A and EPQ/IVE).

With respect to the examined pre-traumatic variables and PTSD symptoms, the two groups manifested no differences. The non-tattooed group achieved higher scores on the IQ test (IQ=100) than the tattooed group (IQ=95). EPQ test showed results either above or below the norms on all scales that were applied. The tattooed group demonstrated significantly higher levels of impulsiveness, adventurism, empathy and neuroticism than the non-tattooed one (p < 0.05).

In the group of 100 Croatian veterans treated for PTSD, 33 had tattoos and 67 did not.

The results indicated more impulsiveness, adventurism / risk behavior, empathy and neuroticism in the tattooed group than in the non-tattooed group, while there was no significant difference in the intensity of the PTSD symptoms.