Talk to the Veterans Crisis Line now
An official website of the United States government
Search | Search by Center | Search by Source | Keywords in Title
Pogoda TK, Cramer IE, Meterko M, Lin H, Hendricks A, Holloway RG, Charns MP. Patient and organizational factors related to education and support use by Veterans with Parkinson's disease. Movement Disorders : Official Journal of The Movement Disorder Society. 2009 Oct 15; 24(13):1916-24.
Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects. Patient education and support services are recognized in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as important to the patient-centered treatment of Parkinson's disease. Indeed, educating patients is one of the missions of the VA's six specialty Parkinson's Disease Research, Education and Clinical Centers (PADRECCs). We compared VA education/support services utilization by whether or not a patient's VA Medical Center (VAMC) contained a PADRECC. Our sample included Parkinson's disease patients from VAMCs with (n = 882) and without (n = 1,448) PADRECCs. Patients completed surveys that asked about demographic/individual characteristics, health status/function, and education/support utilization. Results showed that 15.8% (n = 354) of all patients utilized education/support services. Patients at PADRECC VAMCs were generally healthier and more educated than other VAMC patients. After statistically controlling for these differences, however, being a patient at a PADRECC VAMC site and using only VA providers (as compared to a combination of VA and non-VA providers) were significant predictors of education/support utilization. Further, proportionally more PADRECC VAMC site patients reported higher satisfaction and receiving a broad range of information from different modalities as compared to other VAMC patients. These findings suggest that PADRECC VAMCs are providing educational/support activities consistent with these specialty centers' goals.
