Perceived Barriers to VA Mental Health Care Among Upper Midwest American Indian Veterans

Westermeyer, Joseph; Cañive, José M.; Thuras, Paul; Chesness, Dana; Thompson, James Westfall

doi:10.1097/00005650-200201001-00008

Cited by 37 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…This finding is heartening in light of a recent Institute of Medicine report 44 on racial and ethnic disparities in health care and consistent with previous studies [45][46][47] of VA health services utilization. The finding that the small proportion of "other"racial/ethnic minorities were less likely to receive any medical care is consistent with recent studies 48,49 documenting barriers to VA care among Native American veterans and should be studied further.…”

Section: Traditional Factors Predicting Receipt Of Medical Caresupporting

confidence: 87%

Determinants of Receipt of Ambulatory Medical Care in a National Sample of Mentally Ill Homeless Veterans

Desai¹,

Rosenheck²,

Kasprow³

2003

Medical Care

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A majority of homeless veterans contacted through a national outreach program failed to receive medical services within 6 months of program entry. Vulnerable-domain factors were important supplements to traditional variables in predicting use of medical services in the homeless population. Greater efforts are needed to ensure that mentally ill homeless persons are successfully linked with and engaged in medical treatment.

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Section: Traditional Factors Predicting Receipt Of Medical Caresupporting

confidence: 87%

Determinants of Receipt of Ambulatory Medical Care in a National Sample of Mentally Ill Homeless Veterans

Desai¹,

Rosenheck²,

Kasprow³

2003

Medical Care

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“…Findings suggest that factors including stigma (Iversen et al, 2011), negative attitudes about mental health services (Kim, Britt, Klocko, Riviere, & Adler, 2011) and poor recognition of the need for treatment (Britt, Wright, & Moore, 2012) are barriers to help-seeking for veterans. Furthermore, practical barriers to accessing care are deemed important, including problems with the availability and accessibility of services (Brown, Creel, Engel, Herrell, & Hoge, 2011), waiting times (Damron-Rodriguez et al, 2004) and excessive paperwork (Westermeyer, Canive, Thuras, Chesness, & Thompson, 2002). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pathways into mental health care for UK veterans: a qualitative study

Mellotte

Murphy

Rafferty

et al. 2017

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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Background: It is well established that veterans suffering from mental health difficulties under use mental health services. Objective: This study aimed to understand more about the barriers that prevent veterans from seeking professional help and the enablers that assist veterans in seeking professional help. It also aimed to explore potential mechanisms to improve veterans’ help-seeking and pathways to care. Method: The study employed a qualitative design whereby 17 veterans who had recently attended specialist veteran mental health services took part in semi-structured interviews. The resultant data were analysed using grounded theory. Results: Participants described two distinct stages to their help-seeking: initial help-seeking and pathways through treatment. Specific barriers and enablers to help-seeking were identified at each stage. Initial barriers included recognizing that there is a problem, self-stigma and anticipated public stigma. Initial enablers included being in crisis, social support, motivation and the media. Treatment pathway barriers included practical factors and negative beliefs about health services and professionals. Treatment pathway enablers included having a diagnosis, being seen in a veteran-specific service and establishing a good therapeutic relationship. Participants provided some suggestions for interventions to improve veterans’ help-seeking in future; these focussed on enhancing both veterans and health professionals’ knowledge regarding mental health difficulties. Conclusions: This study identified a number of barriers and enablers that may impact a veteran’s journey in seeking help from professional services for mental health difficulties. Enablers such as reaching a crisis point, social support, the media, having a diagnosis of PTSD and veteran-specific mental health services appeared to be important in opposing stigma-related beliefs and in supporting veterans to engage in help-seeking behaviours.

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“…Veterans from these groups are known to have high rates of lifetime combat PTSD (Beals et al, 2002;Friedman et al, 1997;Shore and Manson, 2004) as well as high rates of PTSD from noncombat trauma (Cervantes et al, 1989). This secondary analysis was based on data obtained in a study of barriers to mental health care (Westermeyer et al, 2002b).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Severity of Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Versus Noncombat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Brinker

Westermeyer

Thuras

et al. 2007

Journal of Nervous &Amp; Mental Disease

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The goal of the study was to compare severity of combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) versus noncombat-related PTSD in a group known to have high rates of combat-related PTSD. Sample consisted of 255 male American Indian and Hispanic veterans with lifetime PTSD who were contacted in communities in 2 regions of the country. Measures of PTSD severity included current posttraumatic symptoms, remission from lifetime PTSD, lifetime severity of alcohol-drug related problems, and mental health treatment history. Our findings revealed that veterans with combat-related PTSD had more severe posttraumatic symptoms, were less apt to have remitted from PTSD during the last year, and-contrary to expectation-were less apt to have sought mental health treatment since military duty. In conclusion, combat-related PTSD was more severe, as compared with noncombat-related PTSD, in this group, on 2 out of 5 measures. A low rate of mental health treatment since military duty may have contributed to increased symptoms and a lower remission rate.

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Perceived Barriers to VA Mental Health Care Among Upper Midwest American Indian Veterans

Cited by 37 publications

References 15 publications

Determinants of Receipt of Ambulatory Medical Care in a National Sample of Mentally Ill Homeless Veterans

Determinants of Receipt of Ambulatory Medical Care in a National Sample of Mentally Ill Homeless Veterans

Pathways into mental health care for UK veterans: a qualitative study

Severity of Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Versus Noncombat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

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