Background For New Zealand veterans, operational service and transition to civilian life are critical life events. Most veterans do well, but a significant minority fare poorly. Adverse outcomes are associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, and also the development of minor but multiple health complaints, ‘multiple symptom illness’ (MSI).

Aim This project investigates factors associated with both wellbeing and ill health in NZ veterans, with the aim of developing a parsimonious instrument to detect ‘at risk’ veterans prior to, or at, transition.

Methods An on-line cross-sectional survey.

Wellbeing is measured by the EQ-5D, a health-related quality of life instrument assessing mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression. The adverse outcome is PTSD, identified using the PCL-M, an instrument reflecting DSM-IV PTSD symptoms.

Risk factors include MSI conforming to the Centers for Disease Control definition as ‘the presence, for at least six months, of one or more chronic symptoms from at least two of three categories, namely fatigue, mood-cognition and musculoskeletal symptoms’. The General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28) screens for emotional distress and possible psychiatric morbidity. The Brief Trauma Questionnaire (BTQ), a 10-item self-report questionnaire derived from the Brief Trauma Interview, assesses the role of stressors contributing to PTSD.

Protective factors include the 24-item Social Provisions Scale (SPS) assessing social relationships and various dimensions of social support.

Analysis Logistic regression will identify the model of best fit for PTSD (PCL-M) and wellbeing (EQ-5D) respectively.

For MSI, a factor analysis will describe the pattern of symptom reporting. If this matches international experience, 3 factors will explain the majority of the variance in the data.

Results As at the 14th Nov 2018 we have 1592 completed questionnaires. Analysis will commence in mid-November 2018.