Back to Search Start Over

Is there a Gulf War Syndrome? Searching for syndromes by factor analysis of symptoms.

Authors :
Haley RW
Kurt TL
Hom J
Haley, R W
Kurt, T L
Hom, J
Source :
JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association; 01/15/97, Vol. 277 Issue 3, p215-222, 8p
Publication Year :
1997

Abstract

<bold>Objective: </bold>To search for syndromes in Persian Gulf War veterans.<bold>Participants: </bold>Two hundred forty-nine (41%) of the 606 Gulf War veterans of the Twenty-fourth Reserve Naval Mobile Construction Battalion living in 5 southeastern states participated; 145 (58%) had retired from service, and the rest were still serving in the battalion.<bold>Design: </bold>Participants completed a standardized survey booklet measuring the anatomical distributions or characteristics of each symptom, a booklet measuring wartime exposures, and a standard psychological personality assessment inventory. Two-stage factor analysis was used to disentangle ambiguous symptoms and identify syndromes.<bold>Main Outcome Measures: </bold>Factor analysis-derived syndromes.<bold>Results: </bold>Of 249 participants, 175 (70%) reported having had serious health problems that most attributed to the war, and 74 (30%) reported no serious health problems. Principal factor analysis yielded 6 syndrome factors, explaining 71% of the variance. Dichotomized syndrome indicators identified the syndromes in 63 veterans (25%). Syndromes 1 ("impaired cognition," characterized by problems with attention, memory, and reasoning, as well as insomnia, depression, daytime sleepiness, and headaches), 2 ("confusion-ataxia," characterized by problems with thinking, disorientation, balance disturbances, vertigo, and impotence), and 3 ("arthro-myo-neuropathy," characterized by joint and muscle pains, muscle fatigue, difficulty lifting, and extremity paresthesias) represented strongly clustered symptoms; whereas, syndromes 4 ("phobia-apraxia"), 5 ("fever-adenopathy"), and 6 ("weakness-incontinence") involved weaker clustering and mostly overlapped syndromes 2 and 3. Veterans with syndrome 2 were 12.5 times (95% confidence interval, 3.5-44.8) more likely to be unemployed than those with no health problems. A psychological profile, found in 48.4% of those with the syndromes, differed from posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, somatoform disorder, and malingering.<bold>Conclusion: </bold>These findings support the hypothesis that clusters of symptoms of many Gulf War veterans represent discrete factor analysis-derived syndromes that appear to reflect a spectrum of neurologic injury involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
00987484
Volume :
277
Issue :
3
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
107158557
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.277.3.215