PRISONER OF WAR EXPERIENCE - EFFECTS ON WIVES

The aim of this study was to compare the wives of Australian soldiers who had been imprisoned during World War II (POWs) with a control grou p of non-POWs' wives and also to compare the POWs and non-POWs themsel ves in respect to several psychological and family life characteristic s on which differences might be expected to arise from the long-term e ffects of imprisonment. A random sample of 145 of these veterans and t heir wives completed several self-administered mood and family life sc ales, an inventory of somatic symptoms, questions about the impact of the war on the veteran in the postwar decades, and several social back ground questions. The POWs themselves were more depressed and reported more somatic symptoms and a greater postwar impact of the war than th e non-POWs. However, these differences were not accompanied by concomi tant differences among their wives. There was some evidence of an infl uence of the POW's mood on his wife's mood in significant correlations between husbands' and wives' depression and anxiety scale scores in P OW couples alone. Otherwise, there was very little indication that the POW experience had any long-term effect on the marriage relationship as measured by the variables included in this study.