Long-term health consequences of wartime imprisonment: A review of the concord hospital POW project

Abstract

A project was commenced in 1982 to examine the impact of the stress of imprisonment on the post-war physical and mental health of members of the Australian Army who had been captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore in 1942 (POWs). Comparison with a control group of combatants in the same theatre of war who had not been imprisoned showed very few differences in physical health but markedly higher psychiatric morbidity among the POWs. A second wave of the study in 1991 explored hypothesised links between dietary deprivation and severe stress as a young adult and the incidence of Alzheimer's dementia in later life but found no evidence of diminished cognitive performance among the POWs. Imprisonment as a risk factor for accelerated age-related illness and disability was also examined but very few differences were found between the POWs and non-POWs and those differences were relatively small. However the prevalence of anxiety and depressive disorders declined significantly between the first and second waves of the study, more so in the POWs than in the controls. An examination of several aspects of family life showed no differences between the POWs and non-POWs. indicating that marital relationships had not been adversely affected by imprisonment.