Portuguese colonial war veterans’ mental health: a systematic review

Résumé 0

Forty-five years have passed since the end of the Portuguese colonial war, however, no systematic review was conducted with the purpose to present the main themes and synthesize the key findings regarding veterans’ mental health. This review aims to fill this gap. This review followed the steps outlined in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. Relevant articles were identified through electronic databases, without limits on study design or publication year. Searches were supplemented with bibliographic reviews and consultation with experts. Eligible studies were assessed for their methodological quality. The search yielded 215 titles; 26 met inclusion criteria. Veterans’ mental health literature crosses over several domains, including, prevalence, risk factors, functional impairment, interventions, and factors related to recovery from Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis. All studies were cross-sectional and conducted in Portugal. Results indicate that veterans presented a high degree of family, occupational and medical functional impairment, with reports of high prevalence of PTSD and comorbidities. Veterans with PTSD and without PTSD verbalized different trajectories after the war. Risk and protective factors associated with mental disorders were found. Behavioral therapy and virtual reality expose therapy may help veterans’ mental health. The literature lacks interventional and longitudinal designs. Understudied content areas include, for example, satisfaction with health care use, or the effect of aging on veterans’ mental health.