Relationship of general health status (Goldberg method) with socioeconomic position and demographic features in Sardasht chemical veterans

The Islamic Republic of Iran was chemically attacked by the Saddam Hossein’s enemy for five years during the imposed war and this issue caused many physical and psychological injuries. The aim of this study was to investigate the general health status and its relationship with the socio-economic status of non-army citizens of Sardasht.

This study was part of the research of Ghazanfari, Vaezmahdavi, et al since 2008. The study population was 28 chemical warfare veterans in Sardasht who were evaluated using the Goldberg General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), rating from 0 for best to 84 the worth health situation. Also, the relationship between the general health situation and socio-economic status were considered. In addition, the level of education, severity of exposure, injury rate and quality of life were evaluated.

The mean of general health in normal, mild and severe exposure groups was 50.0, 51.5 and 29.8, respectively, which indicates difference in general health of between group severe with group mild and normal (P<0.05). Also, there was a significant relationship between the variables of socio-economic status, level of education, quality of life, intensity of exposure and the percentage of casualties with general health in most groups. Data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance and nonlinear regression.

The results showed that improving socio-economic status plays an important role in public and mental health. So, the socio economic status is a significant predictor contributing destructive effects of mustard gas on general and mental health and influences actual health situation.