The relationship of stress and duty status on the psychological and physical health of Gulf War Veterans.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to research the connection between duty status, Gulf War Stressors experienced by Gulf War Veterans and physical and psychological outcomes. The Department of Defense has made available a database of over 60,000 Gulf War Veterans who participated in structured interviews and physical as well as psychological testing. The testing was under the direction of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. The present research built on previous research (Kenny, 2004) and tested five hypotheses, each building on the previous accepted hypothesis. Analysis of this information in relation to the hypotheses used a Structural Equation Model. The model examined psychological and physical health outcomes, Gulf War stressors, demographics and duty status. The findings added to the literature by supporting Kenny's (2004) findings and extending them to show that reserve duty personnel, exposed to Gulf War Stressors, presented with a higher per capita incident of symptoms of the Gulf War Syndrome than their active duty counterparts.