The health status and quality of life of veterans
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15584/medrev.2016.4.3Keywords:
military mission, soldier, veteran, injury, quality of life, low back painAbstract
Introduction. Military operations are associated with high health risks, and loss of life.
Aim. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of military missions on quality of life, health, family and social situation of Polish veterans. An additional aim was to examine how often they suffered from injuries, as well as their subjective evaluation of physiotherapy after returning to the country.
Material and methods. The study involved 60 people: in the study group there were 30 soldiers - veterans (28 men and 2 women) and in control group there were 30 soldiers, who had not participated in missions (28 men and 2 women). The age of the group of veterans was 22 to 58 years, mean age 33.45 ± 11.04 years. The age of the control group was 43 to 21 years, mean 25.10 ± 4.41 years. The test was performed with the use of authors’ own surveys and with two questionnaires: Rolland-Morris and WHOQOL Bref.
Results. The reasons that motivated the soldiers to go on a mission was mainly their desire to improve their financial situation and to take the opportunity to gain experience. Injuries were experienced by 10 soldiers (33%) soldiers. Soldiers’ physical activity, fitness, quality of life and health deteriorated after mission. Return to the home country was related to changes in the psychosocial environment.
Conclusions. 1. Participation in military missions contributed to negative changes in behavior of soldiers and in relationships with relatives and strangers. 2. Despite these, the veterans evaluated their the quality of life and health as well.
Downloads
References
Korzeniewski K. Obrażenia ciała na współczesnym polu walki w Iraku i Afganistanie. MP 2008;86:51-54.
Skotnicka J. Analiza zaburzeń polskich żołnierzy po stresie traumatycznym, po powrocie z misji stabilizacyjnej w Iraku. Psychiatr Pol 2013;6:1065-1074.
Heitzman J. Zespół pourazowego stresu - kryteria diagnostyczne, zastosowanie kliniczne i orzecznicze. Psychiatr Pol 1995;6:751-766.
Dudek B. Zaburzenia po stresie traumatycznym. GWP, Sopot 2003;1:150-153.
Truszczyńska A, Truszczyński O, Rąpała K, Gmitrzykowska E, Tarnowski A. Postural stability disorders in rural patients with lumbag spinal stenosis. Ann Agric Environ Med 2014;21(1):179-82.
Wołowicka L, Jaracz K. Polska wersja WHOQOL 100 i WHOQOL Bref. in: Wołowicka L. (red.). Jakość życia w naukach medycznych. Wydawnictwo Uczelniane Akademii Medycznej w Poznaniu, Poznań 2001:5-6.
Jaracz K, Kalfoss M, Górna K, Bączyk G. Quality of life in Polish respondents: psychometric properties of the Polish WHOQOL-Bref. Scand J of Public Health, 2006; 251-260.
Hoge C, Castro C, Messer S, Mc Gurk D, Cotting D, Koffman R. Combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, mental health problems, and barriers to care. NEJM 2004;351:13-22.
Garcia-Rea E, Le Page J. Reliability and Validity of the World Health Organization Quality of Life: Brief Version (WHO-QOL-BREF) in a Homeless Substance Dependent Veteran Population. JRRD 2008;4:619-626.
Sim M. Health Study 2005 Australian Veterans of the Korean war. DEPM Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences 2005;1:93-98.
Gnacińska-Szymańska M, Daradzińska J, Majkowicz M, Małgorzewicz S. Ocena jakości życia osób z nadmierną masą ciała za pomocą formularza WHOQOL-BREF. Via Medica 2012;8(4):136-141.
Tworus R., Szymańska S., Ilnicki S.. Kompleksowa terapia PTSD u żołnierza PKW z zastosowaniem rzeczywistości wirtualnej oraz treningu behawioralnego in vivo Lek Wojsk 2010; 88 (3): 269-274.
Guay S, Fortin C, Fikretoglu D, Poundja J, Brunet A. Validation of the WHOQOL-BREF in a sample of male treatment-seeking veterans. Mil Psychol 2015;2:85-92.
Kang H, Bullman A, Smolenski D, Skopp N, Gahm G, Reger M. Suicide risk among 1.3 million veterans who were on active duty during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Ann Epidemiol 2015;25:96-100.
Reger MA, Smolenski DJ, Skopp NA, Metzger-Abamukang MJ, Kang HK, Bullman TA, et. al. Risk of suicide among US Military service members following Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom deployment and separation From the US Military. JAMA Psychiatry 2015;72(6):561-569.
Ursano RJ, Kessler RC, Stein MB, Naifeh JA, Aliaga PA, Fullerton CS et. al. Suicide attempts in the US Army during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 2004 to 2009. JAMA Psychiatry 2015;72(9):917-26.
Rąpała A. Problemy bólów kręgosłupa u pilotów wojskowych. Pol Przeg Med Lot 2005;2(12):145-151.
Truszczyńska A, Lewkowicz R, Truszczyński O, Rąpała K, Wojtkowiak M. Backpain in Polish military helikopter pilots. Int J Occup Med. Environ Health 2012;3:258-264.
Truszczyńska A, Lewkowicz R, Truszczyński O, Wojtkowiak M. Back pain and following consequences among Polish Air Force military high performance aircraft pilots. Int J Occup Med Environ Health 2014;27(2):243-251.
Cohen S, Gallagher R, Davis S, Griffith S, Carragee E.Spinearea pain in military personnel: a review of epidemiology, etiology, diagnosis, and treatment. Spine J 2012;12:833-842.
Zelijko B, Lovrć Z, Amć E,Busić V, Lovrć L, Markovć I. War injuries of the extermities: twelve-year follow-up data. Mil Med 2006;171:55-57.
Korzeniewski K. Zachorowalność i urazowość populacji żołnierzy narodowości polskiej leczonej w Szpitalu Polowym Wielonarodowej Dywizji w Strefie Środkowo-Południowej w Iraku. MP 2004;80:203-207.
Lovrić Z. Surgical management of casualties in a low intensity war. Natl Med J India 2002;15:111-113.
Cohen S, Griffith S, Larkin T, Villena F, Larkin R. Presentation, diagnoses, mechanisms of injury, and treatment of soldiers injured in Operation Iraqi Freedom: an epidemiological study conducted at two military pain management centers. Anesth Analg 2005;101:1098-1103.
Korzeniewski K. Zabezpieczenie medyczne operacji wojskowych w Iraku i Afganistanie. MP 2008;86:46-50.
Sharma J, Greeves J, Byers M, Bennett A, Spears R. Musculoskeletal injuries in British Army recruits: a prospective study of diagnosis-specific incidence and rehabilitation times. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 2015;4:106-110.
Jagusz M, Nawarecki D. Możliwości edukacji prozdrowotnej w wojsku. UMCS Lublin-Polonia 2005; 1: 219-224.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2016 European Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Our open access policy is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition: this means that articles have free availability on the public Internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from having access to the Internet itself.
All articles are published with free open access under the CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license (the current version is CC-BY, version 4.0). If you submit your paper for publication by the Eur J Clin Exp Med, you agree to have the CC-BY license applied to your work. Under this Open Access license, you, as the author, agree that anyone may download and read the paper for free. In addition, the article may be reused and quoted provided that the original published version is cited. This facilitates freedom in re-use and also ensures that Eur J Clin Exp Med content can be mined without barriers for the research needs.
