A Comparative Study of the Mental Health of War Injured and Martyr's Spouses in Zahedan

Mental health of war veteran's spouses and martyr's widows is expected to be more susceptible due to their specific stresses. This study aims to find the mental health situation related to different variables. This is a cross-sectional and descriptive study. One hundred martyr's widows and the same number of war veteran's spouses were selected and divided into two groups by systematic randomized sampling from among the list of those followed up by Zahedan War Veterans Foundation. Mental health of the individuals in the study was assessed by "General Health Questionnaire" and also semi-structural interviews. The data were analyzed by ANOVA and Toky Post Hoc Test. The results revealed that the mean scores of both groups and also 70% of the whole number of contributors in the study were higher than the GHQ cut-off point. Comparing the means in GHQ scores of the two groups showed no statistically significant difference. Women whose husbands had physical injuries showed a better mental health than those with mentally ill husbands (p=0.001). The findings of this study in concordance with other similar researches confirm that generally martyr's widows and war veteran's spouses suffer from low level of mental health. The relationship between the type of injury and mental health of veteran' spouses calls for special cares and services for different groups.