A profile of help-seeking Australian veterans

While considerable information is available regarding American Vietnam veterans, surprisingly little has appeared concerning veterans of other nationalities who served in the Vietnam war. This paper provides a preliminary profile of help-seeking Australian veterans in order to afford a comparison with the available American data. Collected in the context of a review of the Vietnam Veterans Counselling Service (VVCS), demographic data suggest that the client population is similar in many ways to that of the American posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Clinical Teams. Problems commonly reported by clients of VVCS included posttraumatic stress, relationship difficulties, anxiety, depression, and problems with pensions and benefits. A postal survey of a sub-sample of current clients revealed a mean score on the Combat Exposure Scale of 19.27 and a mean score on the Mississippi Scale for PTSD of 118.43. Again, these findings are broadly comparable with those of American help-seeking veterans.