Mental health and somatic symptom reductions during Ukraine's counteroffensive in the fall of 2023.

Background

As the war in Ukraine has become protracted, civilians have been forced to adapt to chronic danger, uncertainty, and repeated military threat. This prospective study examined mental health symptom change during a pivotal six-month period in 2023, encompassing the high hopes surrounding the rise of the Ukrainian counteroffensive and the subsequent disappointment of its stall.

Methods

We conducted a two-wave online longitudinal study of 208 Ukrainian civilian adults (80.8% female; mean age 29.4 years) assessed in June 2023 and November 2023. Primary outcomes were generalised anxiety, depression, and somatic symptoms. We further examined whether symptom change was associated with baseline sleep disturbance, trait resilience, and sociodemographic factors. Subjective threat perception, confidence in military success, and objective indicators of military threat were included as contextual variables.

Results

Confidence in military success declined significantly across the two waves, while objective indicators of military threat, including artillery attacks and air raid alarms, increased. Subjective threat perception remained stable. Despite this unfavourable context, generalised anxiety, depression, and somatic symptoms decreased on average over time. Individual differences in symptom change were partly associated with baseline characteristics. Higher baseline sleep disturbance predicted smaller reductions in anxiety and depression. Female sex was associated with smaller reduction in depression, and older age with greater reduction in anxiety. Trait resilience and socioeconomic factors were not significantly associated with symptom change.

Conclusion

The findings suggest that anxiety, depression, and somatic symptoms may decrease over time even under worsening objective wartime conditions. This pattern is more consistent with partial adaptation under chronic threat than with improvement in external circumstances. Sleep disturbance emerged as a robust predictor of less favourable symptom change, highlighting sleep as a potentially important target for mental health support under prolonged war-related stress.