PTSD in WWII mustard gas test participants. A preliminary report

Evaluation of secondary post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in the spouses of chemical warfare victims 20 years after the Iran–Iraq war

Aims and method

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been reported in 90% of chemical warfare victims in previous studies. An individual's traumatic experience(s) may affect the lives of other family members as well. This cross-sectional case–control study compared the prevalence of PTSD symptoms in the husbands, the secondary PTSD symptoms in the wives and also aimed to identify if there was an association between the PTSD symptoms of the couples in the case group. Cases were 150 husband–wife couples where husbands were civilians exposed to chemical warfare; the controls were 156 husband–wife couples where there was no such exposure. Both cases and controls were recruited from Sardasht in Iran; this Kurdish city was attacked by four 250 kg sulphur mustard warheads in June 1987.

Results

Across three sets of cut-off points for the Mississippi Scale for Combat-Related PTSD symptomotology (<120 and ⩾121; <106 and ⩾107; and <65, 65–130 and > 130) wives in the case group demonstrated higher rates of PTSD symptoms than did those in the control group; the difference was statistically significant. Furthermore, husbands in the case group had a significantly higher overall mean score (123.0 (s.d. = 17.2)) than the husbands in the control group (112.3 (s.d. = 21.7); P<0.001, t = 4.80). There was no statistically significant association between the overall PTSD score of the husbands in the case group with that of their wives (P = 0.274, correlation coefficient 0.092).

Clinical implications

Husbands who were exposed to the chemical agents reported higher PTSD symptoms and there were higher rates of PTSD symptoms among the wives of individuals who were exposed to chemical warfare. Study results suggest the need for coordinated treatments, policy efforts and interventions to improve the wellbeing of chemical warfare victims and their caregiver wives.

LSD experiments by the United States Army

Extensive LSD testing was conducted by the US Army at Edgewood Arsenal and other locations from 1955 to 1967. A number of different reports have been produced describing the health effects of this testing, including the Veterans Health Initiative Report in 2003. By and large, these reports gloss over and minimize the short and long-term side effects and complications of this testing. However, the reports themselves document frequent, severe complications of the LSD. These side effects were regarded by the Army as having been directly caused by the LSD exposure. In view of the current resurgence of interest in hallucinogens within psychiatry, the sanitized version of the effects of LSD exposure on US soldiers needs to be replaced with a more accurate account.

Individual differences in trauma disclosure

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Findings on disclosure and adjustment following traumatic events have been mixed. Better understanding of individual differences in disclosure may help us better understand reactions following trauma exposure. In particular, studying disclosure patterns for those with and without psychopathology and for different types of emotional experiences may help clarify the relationship between disclosure, event emotionality, trauma exposure, and PTSD.

METHODS

In this study, 143 men and women with (n=67) and without (n=43) chronic PTSD and without trauma exposure (n=33) provided information on disclosure for a traumatic/severe life event, a negative event, and a positive event.

RESULTS

Individuals with PTSD reported greater difficulty disclosing their traumatic event compared to those with trauma exposure no PTSD and those with no-trauma exposure. However, individuals with PTSD reported disclosing the traumatic event a similar number of times and with similar levels of detail to those with trauma exposure but no PTSD. Both sexual and childhood trauma were associated with greater disclosure difficulty.

LIMITATIONS

Although control event types (positive, negative) were selected to control for the passage of time and for general disclosure style, they do not control for salience of the event and results may be limited by control events that were not highly salient.

CONCLUSIONS

The present findings point to a dynamic conceptualization of disclosure, suggesting that the differential difficulty of disclosing traumatic events seen in individuals with PTSD is not simply a function of the amount of disclosure or the amount of details provided.

World War II Never Ended in My House: Interviews of 12 Office of Strategic Services Veterans of Wartime Espionage on the 50th Anniversary of WW II

The author conducted sociological interviews of 12 OSS spies (7 male, 5 female) who were operatives in France during World War II (WW II). The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) existed from 1941 to 1945 and was later renamed the CIA in 1947. This paper includes family studies of six close relatives of OSS vets and observation of 400 OSS veterans at the 50th anniversary of WW II. Three of the 12 OSS veterans who had been tortured by the Gestapo still suffered from PTSD-startle symptoms after 50 years; those three also suffered massive strokes in later life. The majority of OSS vets, regardless of gender, exhibited "war excitement" when talking about the war 50 years later. Most saw the war as the highpoint of their lives. War excitement needs more careful study within PTSD circles.

Spontaneous reports of emotional upset and health care utilization among veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder after receiving a potentially upsetting survey

This study assessed the effects of a potentially distressing mailed survey on the emotional well-being and health care utilization (HCU) of 4,918 male and female veterans who applied for posttraumatic stress disorder disability benefits. Content analysis of spontaneous comments, in combination with analysis of subjects' HCU before and after receipt of the survey, suggested that spontaneously disclosed episodes of emotional upset were rare. In general, surveyed veterans' HCU decreased after receipt of the survey.

Social sharing of Gulf War experiences: association with trauma-related psychological symptoms

It commonly is believed that talking with family and friends (social sharing) about stressful or traumatic experiences can be therapeutic with regard to stress-related psychological symptoms. Two years after serving in the Gulf War, 58 National Guard Reservists completed the Mississippi Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Scale (PTSD), the Brief Symptom Inventory, and a measure of social sharing that asked how much they had talked to family and friends about their experiences in the Gulf during the 2-year period since returning from the war. Subjects had a broad range of Mississippi PTSD scores. Six subjects met Mississippi criteria for PTSD. Degree of talking to family and friends about Gulf War experiences did not account for a significant portion of the variance in the prediction of PTSD symptoms but did significantly contribute to prediction of scores for interpersonal sensitivity, depression, and psychoticism. Thus, degree of talking with family and friends was not found to be related to PTSD symptoms, although it may have influenced some symptoms of general psychopathology, such as depression, that are not specific to PTSD.