Qualitative study on prisoners of War and Health Problems

during Iran-Iraq war about 40000 veterans and civilians were captured by Iraqis government. The purpose of this survey was to evaluate the most important health problems and issues in the prisoners of war after about 20 years of returning. This qualitative study was based on focus-group discussion in Iranian prisoners of war after returning. 10 prisoners of war who were physician, dentist or psychologist invited to participate in seven meetings to understand the types and consequences of the prisoner’s reentry health problems. Then the problems were categorized and 20 problems were listed. In order to prioritize the problems each returned prisoner handicapped the problems from 1-10. The highest scores considered as the most important problems. The mean age of the cases was 45.5 with the age range of 41-57 years. Duration of capturing was between 30-100 months. The most important health problems in order of importance were PTSD, dental diseases, depression, anxiety and musculoskeletal problems respectively. The results the finding emphasizes the need of further surveys to find out the prevalence of health problems in Iranian prisoners of war.