Citation

Watson CG, Tuorila J, Detra E, Gearhart LP, Wielkiewicz RM. J. Nerv. Ment. Dis. 1995; 183(5): 315-319.

Affiliation

Research Service, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, St. Cloud, Minnesota 56303, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

7745386

Abstract

We compared the scores of Vietnam veterans in treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder on the Mississippi Scale for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder just before, just after, and 6 months after they participated in a pilgrimage to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC. Significant short-term improvement was reported on Mississippi total scores and on 10 of its 35 items. The number of items showing significant improvement between the initial assessment and the 6-month follow-up did not exceed chance, but significant variance increases appeared on 8 of 35 items. This suggests that the pilgrimage led to a) short-term improvements on several posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and b) long-term improvements for some participants, but equally large exacerbations for others on a subset of symptoms.

Language: en