The Health of Former Prisoners of War Results from the Medical Examination Survey of Former POWs of World War II and the Korean Conflict (1992) / Chapter Skim
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4 General Results
4 General Results
Pages 33-42
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From page 33... ...
codes. Additionally, they recorded the source of each coded medical condition within the exam as one of the following: discharge summary; history; findings; laboratory, x-ray, or other such services; psychiatric or psychological examination; medical consultation; or VA benefits application form.
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From page 34... ...
Veteran controls averaged markedly fewer TABLE 4.1 Number of Medical Conditionsa Among Former POWs of World War II (WW II) and the Korean Conflict and Veteran Controls (mean + 2 standard errors, N in parentheses)
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From page 35... ...
It was assumed that the critical differentiation of historical and current medical conditions could be made easily, using one part of the examination, the "summary sheet." The sheet was meant to be filled out by the POW physician coordinator as part of an "exit interview" for each examinee; presumably, it would contain all current medical conditions of interest. Once analysis began, however, it became apparent that about one in seven examinations had no summary section and that the number of medical conditions mentioned on summary sheets constituted only about 15% of the total diagnostic information.
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From page 36... ...
; the test is then said to have low power. In the specific case of WW II POW-versus-control comparisons, the very small number of control examinations provides little power to detect and label prevalence rate differences as noteworthy.
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From page 37... ...
lb 23.0b 9.3 o.ob 10.7b Neuroses 9l.2b 88.7b 9o 4b g3.1b 79.6b 63.0b 83 5b Nervous system 36.4b 18.3 22.9 2s.3b 18.5b 11.1 11.7b Sense organs 86.8 85.9 86.8 88.2 90.7 77.8 83.5 Heart disease 62.0 60.6 59.0 51.2 66.7 63.0 54.4 Cerebrovascular disease 8.4 9.2 12.1 5.2 1.9 0.0 8.7 Hypertension and other circulatory disease 78.4 71.8 79.5 68.6 66.7 66.7 68.9 Acute respiratory 36.4 26.7 31.3 3s.8b 25.9 33.3 24.3b Chronic respiratory 68.4 65.5 67.5 61.0 64.8 59.3 56.3 Digestive 94.4 90.1 91.6 94.4b 87.0 81.5 83.sb Urogenital 60.4 54.2b 49.4 47.1 66.7 33.3b 44.7 Skin 75.2 71.1 79.5 70.3 72.2 63.0 66.0 Musculoskeletal 93.6 86.6 89.2 92.4b 88.9 81.5 8s.4b Congenital conditions 8.0 4.9 7.2 5.6 3.7 3.7 3.9 Symptoms and ill defined conditions 98.8 97.9 98.8 99.3b 98.2 100.0 94.2b Injury and poisoning 85.6 84.sb 91 6b 91.4 81.5 66.7b 94.2 V-codesC 52.4 54.9 57.S 50.5 46.3 55.6 54.4 N 250 142 83 408 54 27 103 POOP, pnsoner of war, Pacific theater, WW II; PWE, pnsoner of war, European theater, WW II; PWEM, pnsoner of war, maluounshed, European theater, WW II; PWK, pnsoner of war, Korean conflict; WP, war veteran, Pacific theater, WW II; WE, war veteran, European theater, WW II; WK, wounded war veteran, Korean conflict. aCoded in ninth revision, International Classification of Disease, Clinical Modification.
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From page 38... ...
In interpreting these apparently very high rates, it should be noted that the psychoses category of ICD-9-CM includes major depression and drug psychoses, such as drug withdrawal syndrome and pathological drug intoxication. The neuroses category includes anxiety states, neurotic depression, depressive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder, all later shown individually to be highly prevalent.
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From page 39... ...
Table 4.3 compares lifetime prevalence rates of selected medical and psychiatric conditions for POWs and controls in the MFUA study, POWs in the Minneapolis study, and the general population; the selected conditions shown are those chosen by Eberly and Engdahl. Despite the crude nature of these data (both WW II and Korean conflict POWs are combined, for example)
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From page 40... ...
For example, the SADS-L criteria used in the Minneapolis study were probably stricter than the simple diagnosis of depressive symptoms used in the MFUA study certainly the SADS-L criteria were more uniformly applied- and this would explain the lower rate of depression in the Minneapolis cohort. The difference in PTSD rates is more difficult to explain, although the analyses presented in Chapter 5 show that the rates of PTSD vary appreciably by measurement instrument.
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From page 41... ...
GO ~4 o ¢ lo Hi o o be cd .Q :, · 'e · - ~= he: c)
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From page 42... ...
. Dysentery is the only prison camp symptom appreciably elevated in all four MFUA POW groups, with beriberi and frozen feet markedly elevated in two of the four groups; there were no noteworthy differences between POWs and controls for lifetime malaria prevalence.
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