Case-Control Studies On Symptoms Of War-related PTSD In Combat Veterans

Objective:To investigate the symptoms of war-related PTSD(WR-PTSD) and its influencing factors on combat veterans who being the army retired cadres and living in Beijing by control studies,and to offer proposals for establishing diagnosis and treatment system of WR-PTSD.Methods:A total of 707 samples were drawn from the retired cadres of nine kinds of different units of army,navy and air force and retired civilian in Beijing. 572 combat veterans with war experience as war group(mean age,78.70±7.64 years old),and 135 civilian as non-war group(mean age,64.08±13.74 years old). The general situation questionnaire and the symptom self-rating scale of PTSD were answered by both of groups.All of data was deal with statistics method by Statistical Package for Social Science(SPSS),including crosstab test, nonparametric tests and Logistic regression analysis.Results:1.Most symptoms of PTSD in the combat veterans were moderate, and severe were few.The current prevalence of PTSD symptoms was 3.5%in war experience group,and 0.7%in non-war experience group.2.There were significant differences in symptoms of PTSD in 50-80 years old combat veterans compared with non-war experience group.In 60-69 years old group positive items met diagnosis criteria of PTSD in Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disordersⅣ(DSM-Ⅳ).3.There were significant correlation among the symptoms of war-related PTSD and injury or death in battle,recent diseases,war experience,educational degree and degree of deformity.The injury or death during battle was strongly and significantly associated with symptoms of PTSD (OR=4.068,95%CI 2.449-6.759).Conclusion:1.There were significant differences between the combat veterans and civilian in symptoms of PTSD.The symptoms of PTSD might continue for many years and most of them moderate after war experience.2.In 60-69 years old group of combat veterans the positive items of PTSD met the diagnosis criteria of DSM-Ⅳ.3.The sensitive factors of WR-PTSD including injury or death in battle,recent diseases,war experience,educational degree and degree of deformity could serve as the risk factors for psychological assessment system.