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- Title
Validation of a Research Case Definition of Gulf War Illness in the 1991 US Military Population.
- Authors
Iannacchione, Vincent G.; Dever, Jill A.; Bann, Carla M.; Considine, Kathleen A.; Creel, Darryl; Carson, Christopher P.; Best, Heather; Haley, Robert W.
- Abstract
Background: A case definition of Gulf War illness with 3 primary variants, previously developed by factor analysis of symptoms in a US Navy construction battalion and validated in clinic veterans, identified ill veterans with objective abnormalities of brain function. This study tests prestated hypotheses of its external validity. Methods: A stratified probability sample (n = 8,020), selected from a sampling frame of the 3.5 million Gulf War era US military veterans, completed a computer-assisted telephone interview survey. Application of the prior factor weights to the subjects' responses generated the case definition. Results: The structural equation model of the case definition fit both random halves of the population sample well (root mean-square error of approximation = 0.015). The overall case definition was 3.87 times (95% confidence interval, 2.61-5.74) more prevalent in the deployed than the deployable nondeployed veterans: 3.33 (1.10-10.10) for syndrome variant 1; 5.11 (2.43-10.75) for variant 2, and 4.25 (2.33-7.74) for variant 3. Functional status on SF-12 was greatly reduced (effect sizes, 1.0-2.0) in veterans meeting the overall and variant case definitions. Conclusions: The factor case definition applies to the full Gulf War veteran population and has good characteristics for research. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel
- Publication
Neuroepidemiology, 2011, Vol 37, Issue 2, p129
- ISSN
0251-5350
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1159/000331478