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Drew A. Helmer, MD, Mindy E. Flanagan, PhD, Robert F. Woolson, PhD and Bradley N. Doebbeling, MD, MSc

Drew A. Helmer is with the War-Related Illness and Injury Study Center and the Center for Healthcare Knowledge Management, Veterans Affairs New Jersey HealthCare System, East Orange, and the New Jersey Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark. Mindy E. Flanagan and Bradley N. Doebbeling are with the Center for Implementing Evidence-Based Practice, Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center, Indianapolis, Ind, and the Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research, Regenstrief Institute, Indiana University, Indianapolis. Bradley N. Doebbeling is also with the Department of Medicine, Indiana University, Indianapolis. Robert F. Woolson is with the Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Epidemiology, College of Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Bradley N. Doebbeling, MD, MSc, VA HSR&D Center for Implementing Evidence-Based Practice, Roudebush VAMC, 1481 W 10th St (11-H), Indianapolis, IN 46202 (e-mail: bdoebbel{at}iupui.edu).

We sought to analyze the self-reported hospitalization, emergency department visits, and outpatient visits of Persian Gulf War (deployed; n=1896) and Persian Gulf War–era (nondeployed; n=1799) military personnel 5 years postconflict to determine whether these groups had different rates of health care use. Compared with personnel who had not been deployed, personnel who had been deployed were more likely to have visited an emergency department (25% vs 21%; odds ratio [OR]=1.24; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.06, 1.51]). Among these groups, the National Guard and Reserve personnel were more likely to have been hospitalized than were the regular military personnel (OR= 1.65; 95% CI=1.21, 2.26).