Psychosocial Functioning and Health-Related Quality of Life Associated with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Male and Female Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans: The VALOR Registry

Abstract Objectives: Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans suffer from high rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Given the growing number of women in the military, there is a critical need to understand the nature and extent of potential gender differences in PTSD-associated psychosocial functioning and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF)/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) veterans, which has not been studied to date. Methods: We used data from a gender-balanced national patient registry of warzone-deployed OEF/OIF veterans (Project VALOR: Veterans After-Discharge Longitudinal Registry) to determine the impact of gender on PTSD-related psychosocial functioning and HRQOL in 1,530 United States Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans (50% female) with and without PTSD. Overall psychosocial functioning was assessed with the Inventory of Psychosocial Functioning (IPF) and mental and physical HRQOL with the Veterans RAND 12-item Health Survey (VR-12) Mental and Physical Compon...