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Comparative Study
. 2013 Apr 24:11:69.
doi: 10.1186/1477-7525-11-69.

Long-term effects of sulfur mustard on civilians' mental health 20 years after exposure (The Sardasht-Iran Cohort Study)

Rasoul Roshan  1 , Parvin Rahnama, Zeinab Ghazanfari, Ali Montazeri, Mohammad Reza Soroush, Mohammad Mehdi Naghizadeh, Mahdiyeh Melyani, Azadeh Tavoli, Tooba Ghazanfari
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Long-term effects of sulfur mustard on civilians' mental health 20 years after exposure (The Sardasht-Iran Cohort Study)

Rasoul Roshan et al. Health Qual Life Outcomes. .

Abstract

Background: Sulfur mustard (SM) is an alkylating agent that induces short and long term toxicity on various organs. The aim of this study was to assess the long-term psychological symptoms among samples of exposed to sulfur mustard gas compared with unexposed civilians 20 years after exposure.

Methods: This historical cohort study was conducted on 495 civilians of Sardasht and Rabat in two age matched groups, including 367 sulfur mustard exposed participants from Sardasht and 128 unexposed subjects from Rabat. Psychological symptoms was assessed using the Symptom Check List-90 Revised (SCL-90-R) including measures of somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism providing three global distress indices namely: Global Severity Index (GSI), Positive Symptom Total (PST) and Positive Symptom Distress Index (PSDI). Comparison was made between exposed and unexposed civilians.

Results: There were significant differences in somatization (P = 0.002), obsessive-compulsive (P = 0.031), depression (P = 0.007), anxiety (P = 0.042), and hostility (P = 0.002), between the exposed and unexposed groups. In addition there were significant differences between two groups concerning the GSI (P = 0.045) and the PSDI (P < 0.001). The differences between two groups in other subscales were not significant.

Conclusions: The findings from this study showed that civilians who exposed to sulfur mustard gas were suffering from a number of psychological symptoms even 20 years after exposure. Providing mental health services and more resource allocation for this community are highly recommended.

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