Comparing Outcomes of the Veterans Health Administration's Traumatic Brain Injury and Mental Health Screening Programs: Types and Frequency of Specialty Services Used

• DOI: 10.1089/neu.2022.0176
• Publication Date: 2022-07-28T05:10:10Z
• Authors: Shannon R. Miles; Nina A. Sayer; Heather G. Belanger; Hari H. Venkatach...; Frank Andrew Kozel; Peter A. Toyinbo; James A. McCart; Stephen L. Luther
• Keywords: Specialty; Veterans Affairs

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) screens veterans who deployed in support of the wars Afghanistan and Iraq for traumatic brain injury (TBI) mental health (MH) disorders. Chronic symptoms after mild TBI overlap with MH symptoms, which there are already established within VHA. It is unclear whether screen facilitates treatment appropriate specialty care over beyond screens. Our primary objective was to determine screening associated different types (MH, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation [PM&R], Neurology) frequency services compared A retrospective cohort design examined receiving VHA were screened both disorders between Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 FY 2018 (N = 241,136). We calculated service utilization counts MH, PM&R, Neurology six months Zero-inflated negative binomial regression models encounters (counts) fit separately by type a total count services. found that positive resulted 2.38 times more than TBI. Compared only, 1.78 1.33 encounters. appears increase use post-deployment concerns, even those also identified as having possible disorder.