Abstract
Multi System Illness conformed to the US Centers for Disease Control definition as ‘the presence of one or more chronic symptoms (for at least six months) from at least two of three categories namely fatigue, mood-cognition (symptoms of feeling depressed, difficulty remembering or concentrating, feeling moody, feeling anxious, trouble finding the right words or difficulty sleeping) and musculoskeletal (symptoms of joint pain, joint stiffness or muscle pain)’. The modified CDC questionnaire is a 63-item symptom checklist and formed the first section of the questionnaire. Participants had to indicate whether they had experienced one or more of the listed symptoms in the preceding month. Each symptom was further classified in terms of severity (mild, moderate, severe) and duration, lasting less than or greater than six months.
Three factors emerged from the analysis: factor 1 of an arthro-neuromuscular nature, factor 2 a cognitive domain, but factor 3 was psycho-physiological, so the overall factor pattern of New Zealand veterans is different from that reported elsewhere and there does appear to be a distinctive New Zealand pattern. In the MSI analysis, 54% of the veterans served in a war zone, and 28% had PTSD.
A regression analysis was used to see if either of these variables predicted the number of reported symptoms. Serving in a war zone did not, while having PTSD did, as did veteran age. On average (raw data), people with PTSD reported 20 symptoms while those who did not reported 9. The similar numbers for serving in a war zone were 13 and 12 respectively.