Iranian Journal of War and Public Health

 Introduction: during Iran-Iraq war about 40000 veterans and civilians were captured by Iraqis government. The aim of this survey was to assess employment problems and issues in the prisoners of war after about 20 years of returning.

    Methods:  This qualitave study was based on focus-group discussion in Iranian prisoners of war after returning.  The 7 meeting was held to understand the types and consequences of the prisoner’s reentry problems. 10 prisoners of war were invited to participate in the study. The problems were listed by using brain storming. Then the problems were categorized. In order to prioritize the problems each prisoner handicapped the problems from 1-10.  The highest scores considered as the most important problems. 

  Results:The mean age of the cases was 47 with the age range of 41-55 years. Duration of capturing was between 48-118 months. The most common employment problems was early retirement, unemployment but receiving complete pension, lack of regulatory system about prisoner of war employment laws and less informed prisoner of war on existent employment laws, respectively.

   Conclusion: The results this study revealed that the prisoner of war face different types employment and unemployment problems. It is important to accomplish a further study in order to assess the magnitude of this finding.

Introduction: during Iran-Iraq war about 40000 veterans and civilians were captured by Iraqis government. The purpose of this survey was to evaluate the most important health problems and issues in the prisoners of war after about 20 years of returning.

Methods: This qualitative study was based on focus-group discussion in Iranian prisoners of war after returning. 10 prisoners of war who were physician, dentist or psychologist invited to participate in seven meetings to understand the types and consequences of the prisoner’s reentry health problems. Then the problems were categorized and 20 problems were listed. In order to prioritize the problems each returned prisoner handicapped the problems from 1-10. The highest scores considered as the most important problems.

Results: The mean age of the cases was 45.5 with the age range of 41-57 years. Duration of capturing was between 30-100 months. The most important health problems in order of importance were PTSD, dental diseases, depression, anxiety and musculoskeletal problems respectively.

Conclusion: The results the finding emphasizes the need of further surveys to find out the prevalence of health problems in Iranian prisoners of war.

  Objective : Amputation of lower limbs accompanying with serious problems like social, economic, personal and domestic that makes life difficult. As a result of Iraq-Iran war, 578 survivors through bilateral lower limb amputation live in Iran. The purpose of this study was to investigate service satisfaction reported by Iranian bilateral lower limb amputees.

  Materials & Methods : In this cross sectional study, all war related bilateral lower limb amputees were invited for the interview and 335 participated (response rate= 58%). Information about time of injury, the level of amputation, level of education, employment status and rate of the perceived services satisfaction were recorded using a questionnaire.

  Results : The mean age of the cases was 42.1 (SD=3.6). The majority of the cases were male 97.6% (n=327), and married 97.6% (n=327). The average time after injury was 22.3 (SD: 3.9) years. About Two-third (n= 237) were unemployed. The most common type of amputation was both below knee 37.6% (no=133). The most service satisfaction reported by amputees was educational facilities and rehabilitation, and the least satisfaction belonged to sport and recreation and health services. The most important problem in receiving health care services was waiting times for appointments and treatment 72% (n=241) and lack of some specialties in small cities 23.2% (n=78).

  Conclusion : According to results of the study, improvement in accessing to health care services and sport and recreation facilities can lead to higher service satisfaction in war related bilateral lower limb amputees.