Clinical psychiatric illness in prisoners of war of the Japanese: forty years after release

Clinical psychiatric and medical assessments were carried out on a randomly selected sample of Australian prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in 1942 and a sample of combatants from Pacific theatres of war who were not captured. Prisoners of war had significantly more anxiety and depressive 'neuroses' and more major affective illness, although the latter finding was not statistically significant. The two groups did not differ in the risk of alcohol abuse and dependence.