349 THE COPING, THE HARDINESS, AND THE SENSE OF COHERENCE AS MAINTAINING FACTORS FOR MILITARY PERSONNEL’S MENTAL HEALTH IULIA C. GIURCĂ ROMANIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE ANAMARIA CĂTANĂ RALUCA SASSU MIHAELA D. BUCUȚĂ LUCIAN BLAGA UNIVERSITY OF SIBIU Numerous researches have been done regarding the impact of war exposure, which is seen as a ma- jor stress factor among veterans. However, only a few studies have investigated some protective factors that may prevent the onset of problems regarding the mental health of veterans after war exposure. This study examined the relationships between the personality characteristics (the hardiness, the coherence, and the trait anxiety), the coping style, and mental health indicators (the level of perceived stress and anxiety levels) in the context of anticipating confrontation with a major stressful event, in order to de- termine if this (the hardiness, the coherence, the coping style, and mental health indicators) will have any effect on the higher levels of resilience on military service members deployed to Afghanistan. Data from 284 participants were analyzed. The participants were evaluated before attending international army operations. We proposed the following hypotheses: 1) the high levels of coherence and hardiness will be associated with effective management of major stress factors in the context of anticipatory stress; 2) the active coping which focused on stressors will be associated with lower levels of emotional distress. The present findings influence the development of innovative and efficient psychological in- terventions designed for army personnel. Key words: Hardiness; Anticipatory stress; Emotional distress; Soldiers; Pre-deployment phase. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Iulia C. Giurcă, Romanian Ministry of Defense, Bulevardul Camil Ressu 1, Bl.14 B, Sc 3, ap.79, sector 3, 031731 Bucuresti, Romănia. Email: clarisagiurca@yahoo.com In terms of global security, humans represent a very valuable resource for the military system (Gray, Kaiser, Hawksworth, Hall, & Barrett-Connor, 1999). The focus is not only to train polyvalent specialists capable of performing brilliantly in high risk activities, but also to develop soldiers who are able to adapt easily and quickly to different war environments, while also main- taining their operability for a long period of time. From a realistic point of view, each war differs in terms of its duration, intensity, and credibility of purpose and this makes it difficult to precise- ly determine the psychological price that veterans have to pay for their return (Larson, Highfill- McRoy, & Booth-Kewley, 2008). Hence, we decided to focus this research on ways in which such psychological price being paid by veterans at their return home from war could be prevented. TPM Vol. 24, No. 3, September 2017 – 349-361 – Special Issue – doi:10.4473/TPM24.3.3 – © 2017 Cises Green Open Access under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License