Preventive Health Behaviors, Health-Risk Behaviors, Physical Morbidity, and Health-Related Role Functioning Impairment in Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

An examination of the relationships between health behaviors (preventive and risk-related), physician-diagnosed medical problems, role-functioning impairment because of physical morbidity, and post-traumatic stress disorder was conducted on a large cohort of consecutive treatment-seeking cases (N = 826) presenting to an outpatient Veterans Affairs post-traumatic stress disorder clinic. Results revealed that the sample rates of several medical conditions were markedly elevated when compared with general population rates for men of comparable age. The rates of smoking and other behavioral risk variables were greater than rates among men in the general population. Moreover, the majority of the sample did not engage in preventive health behaviors such as exercise and medical screening at levels consistent with health care guidelines. Physical role functioning indices of the SF-36 reveal greater role-functioning impairment because of physical morbidity in this psychiatric sample relative to the age adjusted general population norms. The health care implications of these data are discussed, as are areas for future research.