The effects of the Gulf War in Israel--report from a rural family medical practice.

Throughout the 1991 Gulf War a rural Family Medicine practice in central Israel, situated 20 km from the nearest Scud missile attack area, continued to operate normally. During this period a reduction of more than 50% in clinic visits was recorded. The volume of requests for emergency care remained unchanged but elective hospital admissions decreased. Surprisingly, few new patients were diagnosed with anxiety states and no marked increase was registered in anxiolytic drug prescribing. Many patients, however, expressed feelings of deviance for not conforming with nationally sanctioned and endorsed anxiety levels. The decline in clinic visits noted was probably mediated through a temporary drop in practice accessibility due to the altered population mobility patterns caused by the war. During the 1991 Gulf War the Israeli population suffered not only the general stresses and strains of being in an active war zone but also the real tensions and anxieties associated with night-time attacks on the country by Iraqi Scud missiles. This article describes some of the ways which one rural family medicine practice in central Israel was affected by the dramatic if short-lived events of this war.