Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC 3004, Australia.
J Affect Disord. 2010 Sep;125(1-3):279-86. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2009.12.005. Epub 2010 Jan 13.
Rates of PTSD and depression are high in Korean War veterans. The prevalence and impact of the two disorders occurring comorbidly, however, has not been investigated. This paper aims to investigate the extent to which PTSD and depression co-occur in Australian veterans of the Korean War, the symptom severity characteristics of comorbidity, the impact on life satisfaction and quality, and the association with war-related predictors.
Veterans (N=5352) completed self-report questionnaires including the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Life Satisfaction Scale, the brief World Health Organisation Quality of Life questionnaire and the Combat Exposure Scale.
Seventeen percent of veterans met criteria for comorbid PTSD and depression, 15% had PTSD without depression, and a further 6% had depression without PTSD. Compared with either disorder alone, comorbidity was associated with impaired life satisfaction, reduced quality of life, and greater symptom severity. Several war-related factors were associated with comorbidity and with PTSD alone, but not with depression alone.
The reliance on self-reported measures and the necessity for retrospective assessment of some deployment-related factors renders some study data vulnerable to recall bias.
Comorbid PTSD and depression, and PTSD alone, are prevalent among Korean War veterans, are both associated with war-related factors 50 years after the Korean War, and may represent a single traumatic stress construct. The results have important implications for understanding complex psychopathology following trauma.
在朝鲜战争退伍军人中，创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）和抑郁症的发病率很高。然而，两种疾病同时发生的患病率和影响尚未得到调查。本文旨在调查澳大利亚朝鲜战争退伍军人中 PTSD 和抑郁症同时发生的程度、共病的症状严重程度特征、对生活满意度和生活质量的影响，以及与战争相关预测因素的关系。
退伍军人（N=5352）完成了自我报告问卷，包括创伤后应激障碍检查表、医院焦虑和抑郁量表、生活满意度量表、简短的世界卫生组织生活质量问卷和战斗暴露量表。
17%的退伍军人符合共病 PTSD 和抑郁症的标准，15%患有 PTSD 但没有抑郁症，另有 6%患有抑郁症但没有 PTSD。与任何一种疾病单独相比，共病与生活满意度受损、生活质量降低和症状严重程度增加有关。一些与战争有关的因素与共病和单独的 PTSD 有关，但与单独的抑郁症无关。
依赖自我报告的测量方法和对某些与部署相关因素的回顾性评估使得一些研究数据容易受到回忆偏差的影响。
朝鲜战争退伍军人中同时存在 PTSD 和抑郁症，以及单独的 PTSD，都与 50 年前的战争有关因素有关，并且可能代表单一的创伤性应激结构。研究结果对理解创伤后复杂的精神病理学具有重要意义。
