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Of 249 participants,q75(70%)reported having had serious health problems that most attributed to the war,and 74(30%reported no serious health problems./Principal factor analysis yielded 6 syndrome factors,explaining 71%of the variance.Dichotomized syndrome indicators identified the syndromes in 63 veterans(25%).Syndromes 1("impaired cognition", characterized by problems with attention,memory,and reasoning,as well as insomnia,depression,daytime sleepiness,and headaches),2("confusion- ataxia",characterized by problems with thinking,disorientation,balance disturbances,vertigo,and impotence),and 3("arthro-myo-neuropathy", characterized by joint and muscle pains,muscle fatigue,difficulty lifting, and extremity paresthesias)represented strongly clustered symptoms; whereas,syndromes 4("phobia-apraxia"),5("fever-adenopathy"),and 6(" weakness-incontinence")involved weaker clustering and mostly overlapped syndromes 2 and 3.Veterans with syndrome 2 were 12.5 times(95%confidence interval,3.5-44.8)more likely to be unemployed than those with no health problems.A psychological profile,found in 48.4%of those with the syndromes,differed from posttraumatic stress disorder,depression, somatoform disorder,and malingering.These findings support the hypothesis that clusters of symptoms of many Gulf War veterans represent discrete factor analysis-derived syndromes that appear to reflect a spectrum of neurologic injury involving the central,peripheral,and autonomic nervous systems. |
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