Community Veterans' Decision to Use VA Services: A Multimethod Veteran Health Partnership Study

Background: Ensuring veterans' access to healthcare is a national priority. Prior studies of veterans' use of Veterans Health Administration (VA) healthcare have had limited success in evaluating barriers to access for certain vulnerable veteran subpopulations. Objectives: Our coalition of researchers and veteran community members sought to understand factors affecting use of VA, particularly for those less likely to participate in traditional survey studies. Methods: We recruited 858 veterans to complete a collaboratively designed survey at community events or via social media. We compared our results regarding VA use with the 2010 National Survey of Veterans (NSV) using chi-square tests, multiple logistic regression to identify predictors of VA use, and content analysis for open-ended descriptions of barriers to VA use. Results: Veterans in our study were more likely than NSV respondents to report using VA healthcare ever (76% vs. 28%; p < 0.0001). Within this group, more veterans in our sample were current VA users (83% vs. 68%; p < 0.0001). In multi variable analysis, VA use was predicted by self-reported physical problems (comparing "a lot" vs. "none" for each variable, adjusted odds ratio [OR], 8.35), thinking problems (OR, 1.14), need for smoking cessation (OR, 1.54), need for pain management (OR, 1.65), and need for other mental health services (OR, 3.04). We identified 15 themes summarizing veterans' perceived barriers to VA use. Conclusion: Persistent actual and perceived barriers prevent some veterans from using VA services. The VA can better understand and address these issues through community academic partnerships with veterans' organizations.