Marital Relationship and Its Associated Factors in Veterans Exposed to High Dose Chemical Warfare Agents

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the associates of marital relationship in mustard exposed veterans. Materials and Methods: Two hundred ninety two married Iranian mustard exposed veterans, who had been exposed to single high dose mustard gas in Iraq-Iran war, were assessed for marital adjustment with Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (RDAS). Census sampling was done. The patients' quality of life (SF-36), spirometric measures and war related data were also extracted. Results: A total of 189 subjects (65%) completed our study. The mean (±SD) of the RDAS Total score, RDAS Dyadic Consensus , RDAS Affectional Expression, RDAS Dyadic Satisfaction , and RDAS Dyadic Cohesion were 50.61 (8.16), 16.67 (2.77), 7.62 (1.84), 14.76 (3.39), and 11.54 (3.79), respectively. RDAS Dyadic satisfaction was correlated with SF-36 and all its sub-scores (p<0.05). RDAS total score showed significant correlation with SF-36 total score and most of its sub-scores (p<0.05). RDAS affective expression was significantly correlated with role limitation, social function, general mental health, vitality, General health perceptions, physical composite score (PCS) and mental composite score (MCS) (p<0.05). RDAS dyadic consensus was not correlated with any SF-36 sub-scores. Conclusion: Veterans health team including physicians, psychologists and/or psychiatrists should know that poorer marital satisfaction is linked with lower quality of life scores, late after mustard exposure, although marital relationship is independent of spirometric findings, age, duration from exposure and comorbidity score.

Keywords

• Marital relationship
• Chemical warfare
• Mustard gas
• Quality of life
• Spirometry
• War