Prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Iranian Population Following Disasters andWars: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

  Context: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a chronic psychiatric disorder that occurs as a result of an accident or life-threatening event. The purpose of our study was to examine the prevalence of PTSD in the Iranian population from 2000 to 2015 through a meta-analysis of the published studies to review the epidemiologic evidence of PTSD after disasters and wars and to examine PTSD determinants. Evidence Acquisition: The electronic databases including PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Magiran, etc. were explored to find related papers. Two authors independently reviewed and extracted data via an extraction sheet, and disagreements were resolved by holding a meeting with a third author. Meta-analysis was performed using “metaprop” command in STATA 11 software. Studies with < 25 participants were excluded from our analysis.

Ultimately, 47 studies were included in this meta-analysis. Primary PTSD was investigated in 44 studies and secondary PTSD in six studies. Forty studies investigated natural PTSD and five studies technical PTSD. PTSD related to childbirth, job, earthquake, war, burn, accident, and rape events were investigated in seven, six, nine, nine, two, two, and two studies, respectively, and their pooled prevalence were 25%, 30%, 58%, 47%, 40%, 11%, and 74%, respectively.

The results revealed that the burden of PTSD among the Iranian population exposed to wars and disasters is high. PTSD was correlated with a range of factors including demographic and background factors and characteristics of the event exposure.