BMC Public Health 2004, 4:27 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/4/27 Table 1: Characteristics of all male responders, and of those reporting one or more new medical symptom since 1990 ALL MALE RESPONDERS1 MALE RESPONDERS REPORTING ≥ 1 NEW MEDICAL SYMPTOM/DISEASE SINCE 19901 GWV NGWV GWV NGWV n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) 24,379 (100) 18,439 (100) 14,411 (100) 6,670 (100) Variable Total Age at time of survey (years) 20–29 30–34 35–39 40–44 ≥45 Mean (SD) Service at time of Gulf War2 Army RN RAF Rank at time of Gulf War2 Officer Other ranks Serving status at time of survey Still serving No longer serving Smoking Ever Never Alcohol intake at time of survey (units per week) None 1–3 4–10 11–20 ≥21 "Gulf war syndrome" Yes No Not sure 5,506 (23) 7,871 (32) 5,492 (23) 3,019 (12) 2,491 (10) 35(6.8) 17,106 (70) 2,417 (10) 4,856 (20) 3,202 (13) 21,177 (87) 13,259 (54) 11,120 (46) 13,514 (57) 10,390 (44) 1,514 (7) 3,269 (14) 8,838 (38) 6,173 (26) 3,632 (16) 1,324 (6) 12,577 (53) 9,692 (41) 3,442 (19) 5,754 (31) 4,399 (24) 2,500 (14) 2,343 (13) 36(7.3) 12,559 (68) 2,110 (11) 3,770 (21) 3,062 (17) 15,377 (83) 10,553 (57) 7,886 (43) 9,716 (54) 8,379 (46) 1,190 (7) 2,377 (13) 6,848 (39) 4,767 (27) 2,538 (14) - - 3,361 (23) 4,523 (31) 3,222 (22) 1,797 (13) 1,508 (11) 35(6.8) 10,619 (74) 1,227 (9) 2,565 (18) 1,616 (11) 12,795 (89) 7,293 (51) 7,118 (49) 8,468 (59) 5,865 (41) 1,056 (8) 2,093 (15) 5,169 (37) 3,548 (25) 2,180 (16) 1,282 (9) 4,925 (35) 8,041 (56) 1,295 (19) 1,951 (29) 1,462 (22) 943 (14) 1,019 (15) 36(7.9) 4,750 (71) 658 (10) 1,262 (19) 1,068 (16) 5,602 (84) 3,366 (51) 3,304 (50) 3,784 (57) 2,870 (43) 531 (8) 1,002 (15) 2,398 (37) 1,638 (25) 958 (15) - - 1Numbers for each variable might not add up to total due to missing values. 2At 1st January 1991, or at time of first deployment if known (GWV responders). our study the same four categories accounted for 50.3 percent of all reported symptoms/diseases and this figure rises to over 70 percent when the categories of fatigue and nervous system disorders are included. An additional point concerns the higher levels of accidental injury reported by NGWV veterans; accidents were only half as likely to occur among GWV compared to NGWV (1.3% versus 2.6%). This was surprising as mortality from acci- dents has repeatedly been found to be raised among GWV [18]. This difference is probably due to the inclusion of both major and minor injuries (including those resulting in bone fractures) in our study, and because GWV may be more inclined to report things they think are associated with their Gulf War service. Our findings on Gulf War syndrome (GWS) approximate those from other studies [12-14,19,20]. A significant pro- portion of GWV believed that they had GWS (5.6%) and this belief was associated with increased symptom report- ing. This figure was lower than that reported by other studies (Chalder et al [12] found that 17.3% of GWV believed that they had GWS), but we are the first group to report on a large proportion of GWV who were 'unsure' of their GWS-status (40.9%). 'Unsure' veterans generally reported intermediate frequencies of ill health between those veterans who believed that they had GWS and those that did not. In a sample of UK veterans, Chalder et al [12] found that those who believed they had GWS were more fatigued, more distressed, and more likely to have a post- traumatic stress reaction than veterans who did not believe they suffered from GWS. Our data showed that GWS veterans reported higher frequencies of all categories of ill health (except accidental injury), including skeletal and other muscular symptoms, general fatigue, mood Page 4 of 10 (page number not for citation purposes)