Health of national service veterans: an analysis of a community-based sample using data from the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey of England.
OBJECTIVE
In the context of increasing concerns for the health of UK armed forces veterans, this study aims to compare the prevalence of current mental, physical and behavioural difficulties in conscripted national service veterans with population controls, and to assess the impact of length of service in the military. The compulsory nature of national service sets these veterans apart from younger veterans.


METHODS
Data are drawn from a nationally representative community-dwelling sample of England. We compared 484 male national service veterans to 301 male non-veterans aged 65+ years.


RESULTS
There were no differences in mental, behavioural or physical outcomes, except that veterans were less likely to have "any mental disorder" than non-veterans (age adjusted OR = 0.56, 95% CI 0.31, 0.99). Longer serving veterans were older but were not different in terms of mental, behavioural or physical outcomes.


CONCLUSIONS
Community-dwelling national service veterans are at no greater risk of current adverse mental, physical or behavioural health than population controls.
Woodhead
Charlotte
C
Academic Centre for Defence Mental Health, Weston Education Centre, King's College London, Cutcombe Rd, London SE5 9RJ, UK.
Rona
Roberto J
RJ
Iversen
Amy C
AC
MacManus
Deirdre
D
Hotopf
Matthew
M
Dean
Kimberlie
K
McManus
Sally
S
Meltzer
Howard
H
Brugha
Traolach
T
Jenkins
Rachel
R
Wessely
Simon
S
Fear
Nicola T
NT
D000368:Aged; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013997:Time Factors; D014728:Veterans / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data