Abstract
To attempt to replicate the syndrome-like structure identified by exploratory factor analysis of symptom reports from 249 Gulf War veterans of a Naval reserve battalion (the developmental sample), we administered Haley's original symptom questionnaire to 335 Gulf War veterans who served primarily in active-duty US Army units living in North Texas (the validation sample). On the basis of recently validated goodness-of-fit criteria (SRMR ≤ 0.08, RMSEA ≤ 0.06, and CFI ≥ 0.95), a structural equation model (Model 1) with four symptom scales loading on each of three first-order latent syndrome factors fit both the developmental and validation samples well and was invariant across both samples. Additional models validated a higher-order latent factor (a single Gulf War syndrome) explaining the variances and covariances of the first-order factors, four additional symptom scales loading on the higher-order factor, and four possible secondary factor loadings that also fit the data well. All structural models were invariant across cohorts of the validation sample surveyed before and after intense publicity following publication of the case definition. These findings suggest that the apparent syndrome structure of a single Gulf War syndrome with three variants may be found widely and justify a confirmatory sample survey of Gulf War-era veterans.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 175-200 |
Number of pages | 26 |
Journal | Psychiatry research |
Volume | 102 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 1 2001 |
Keywords
- Case definition
- Confirmatory factor analysis
- Military personnel
- Persian Gulf syndrome
- Reproducibility of results
- Structural equation modeling
- Veterans
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Psychiatry and Mental health
- Biological Psychiatry