Rate and Associated Factors of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Elderly Survivors of Bombardment in Ilam City, Iran

The psychological effects of war, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, may persist for years after the war. The aim of this study was to estimate the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder and its related factors in the elderly survivors of the bombing in Ilam.

The present study was performed by retrospective cohort method on 227 elderly survivors of the imposed war living in Ilam City, Iran, in 2019 who were selected by multi-stage proportional random sampling. The NSESSS-PTSD instrument was used to measure post-traumatic stress disorder. Used descriptive and inferential statistics (independent t-test, ANOVA, and Correlation) for data analysis by SPSS 23 software.

The mean age of the elderly participating in the study was 66.67±7.16 years. 54.2% of participants were female. There was a significant relationship between marital status, employment, witnessing injuries and deaths, age at wartime and gender, and post-traumatic stress disorder. There was a significant relationship between current chronic patients and post-traumatic stress disorder.

16.3% of the elderly survivors of the bombing of the Iran-Iraq war in Ilam have post-traumatic stress disorder.