Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T08:37:28.277Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Falklands Veterans Five Years After the Conflict

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

L. S. O'Brien  and
S. J. Hughes
L. S. O'Brien*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychotherapy, Royal Liverpool Hospital, Liverpool L7 8XP
S. J. Hughes
Affiliation:
Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton
*
∗Correspondence
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A group of 64 Falklands war veterans who were still serving in the British Army were studied and compared with a group of matched controls. Half the veterans reported some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and 22% were rated as having the complete PTSD syndrome. Presence of the symptoms was associated with intensity of combat experience and the retrospective report of emotional difficulties in the initial period on return from the war.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 159 , Issue 1 , July 1991 , pp. 135 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, A. (1943) Neuropsychiatric complications in victims of Boston's Cocoanut Grove disaster. Journal of the American Medical Association, 123, 1098.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (1980) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn) (DSM–III). Washington: APA.Google Scholar
Andreasen, N. (1980) Post traumatic stress disorder. In Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry HI (eds Kaplan, H. I., Freedman, A. M. & Sadock, B. T.), vol. 2. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.Google Scholar
Bleich, A., Garb, R. & Kottler, M. (1986a) Treatment of prolonged combat reaction. British Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 493–496.Google Scholar
Bleich, A., Siegel, B., Garb, R., et al (1986b) PTSD following combat exposure: clinical features and psychopharmacological treatment. British Journal of Psychiatry, 149, 365–369.Google Scholar
Centers for Disease Control Vietnam Experience Study (1988) Health status of Vietnam veterans – I. Psychosocial characteristics. Journal of the American Medical Association, 259, 2701–2707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cervantes, R., Salgado de Snyder, V. & Padilla, A. (1989) Posttraumatic stress in immigrants from Central America and Mexico. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 40, 615–619.Google Scholar
Dahl, S. (1989) Acute response to rape – a PTSD variant. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica (suppl. 355), 56–62.Google Scholar
Daily Mail (1988) ‘Vietnam’ agony of Falklands men. Daily Mail, 31 August.Google Scholar
Daly, R. J. (1983) Samuel Pepys and post traumatic disorder. British Journal of Psychiatry, 143, 64–68.Google Scholar
Deblinger, E., McLeer, S., Atkins, M., et al (1989) PTSD in sexually abused, physically abused, and nonabused children. Child Abuse and Neglect, 13, 403–408.Google Scholar
Dohrenwend, B., Link, B. & Levav, I. (1983) Social functioning of psychiatric patients in contrast with community cases in the general population. Archives of General Psychiatry, 40, 1174–1182.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Figley, C. R. & Leventman, S. (eds) (1980) Strangers at Home: Vietnam Veterans Since the War. New York: Prager.Google Scholar
Foy, D. W., Carrol, E. M. & Donahue, C. P. Jr (1987) Etiological factors in the development of PTSD in clinical samples of Vietnam combat veterans. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 43, 17–27.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1921) Psychoanalysis and the War Neurosis. New York: International Psychoanalytic Press.Google Scholar
Frye, J. S. & Stockton, R. A. (1982) Discriminate analysis of post traumatic stress disorder among a group of Vietnam veterans. American Journal of Psychiatry, 139, 52–56.Google Scholar
Garb, R., Kutz, R., Bleich, A., et al (1987) Varieties of combat stress reaction: an immunological metaphor. British Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 248–251.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. (1972) The Detection of Psychiatric Illness by Questionnaire. Maudsley Monograph 21. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. (1978) Manual of the General Health Questionnaire. Windsor: National Foundation for Educational Research.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D., Kay, C. & Thompson, L. (1974) Psychiatric morbidity in general practice and the community. Psychological Medicine, 6, 565–569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, B. L., Lindy, J. & Grace, M. C. (1985) Post traumatic stress disorder: towards DSM IV. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 173, 406–411.Google Scholar
Jones, G. & Lovett, J. (1987) Delayed psychiatric sequelae among Falklands war veterans. Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 37, 34–35.Google Scholar
Keane, T. M. & Fairbank, T. A. (1983) Survey analysis of combat related stress disorders in Vietnam veterans. American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 348–350.Google Scholar
Kilpatrick, D., Saunders, B., Anick-McMullan, A., et al (1989) Victim and crime factors associated with the development of crime related PTSD. Behaviour Therapy, 20, 199–214.Google Scholar
La Guardia, R. L., Smith, G., Francois, R., et al (1983) Incidence of delayed stress disorder among Vietnam era veterans: the effects of priming on response set. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 53, 18–26.Google Scholar
Loughrey, G., Bell, P., Roddy, R., et al (1988) Post-traumatic stress disorder and civil violence in Northern Ireland. British Journal of Psychiatry, 153, 554–560.Google Scholar
McFarlane, A. C. (1987) Life events and psychiatric disorder: the role of a natural disaster. British Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 362–367.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McFarlane, A. C. (1988) The aetiology of PTSD following a natural disaster. British Journal of Psychiatry, 152, 116–121 Google Scholar
Nace, E., O'Brien, C., Mintz, J., et al (1978) Adjustment among Vietnam veteran drug users two years post-service. In Stress Disorders Among Vietnam Veterans (ed. Figley, C. R.), pp. 71–128. New York: Bruner/Mazel.Google Scholar
O'Brien, L. S. (1983) Psychiatric morbidity in a military general practice. Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 130, 8–10.Google Scholar
Price, H. H. (1984) The Falklands: rate of British combat casualties compared to recent American wars. Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 130, 109–113.Google Scholar
Raphael, B. (1986) The problems of mental health and adjustment. When Disaster Strikes. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Schottenfeld, R. & Cullen, M. (1986) Recognition of occupation-induced PTSD. Journal of Occupational Medicine, 28, 365–369.Google Scholar
Shore, J., Tatum, E. & Vollmer, W. (1986) Psychiatric reactions to disaster: the Mount St Helens experience. American Journal of Psychiatry, 143, 590–595.Google Scholar
Shore, J., Vollmer, W. & Tatum, E. (1989) Community patterns of posttraumatic stress disorders. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 177, 681–685.Google Scholar
Smith, I. (1988) Fall of a Falklands veteran. The Times, 2 July.Google Scholar
Solomon, Z. (1989) Untreated combat related PTSD – why some Israeli veterans do not seek help. Israeli Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences, 26, 111–123.Google Scholar
Solomon, Z., Mikuliner, M. & Bleich, A. (1985) Unique Characteristics of Combat Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Among Israeli Soldiers in the 1982 Lebanon War. Tel Aviv: Department of Health, IDF, Israel.Google Scholar
Solomon, Z. & Benbenishty, R. (1986) The role of proximity, immediacy and expectancy in frontline treatment of combat stress reaction among Israelis in the Lebanon war. American Journal of Psychiatry, 143, 613–617.Google ScholarPubMed
Solomon, Z., Kotler, M., Shalev, A., et al (1989) Delayed onset PTSD among Israeli veterans of the 1982 Lebanon war. Psychiatry, 52, 428–436.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van Putten, T. & Emory, W. H. (1973) Traumatic neurosis in Vietnam returnees: a forgotten diagnosis. Archives of General Psychiatry, 29, 695–698.Google Scholar
Weiseath, L. (1989) Importance of high response rates in traumatic stress research. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica (suppl. 355), 131–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yager, T., Laufer, R. & Gallops, M. (1984) Some problems associated with war experience in men of the Vietnam generation. Archives of General Psychiatry, 41, 327–333.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.