Associations between health-related quality of life and financial barriers to care among women veterans and women non-veterans.
The authors of this study examined the association between health-related quality of life and financial barriers to care, defined as not getting the needed care due to cost considerations. To better understand health-related quality of life among women veterans, the authors compared women veterans to women non-veterans. The authors conducted cross-sectional analyses using data from the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey. The authors assessed four health-related quality of life measures: (1) general health; (2) physical health; (3) mental health; and (4) functional status. The authors performed multinomial logistic regressions to examine the relationship between financial barriers to receiving healthcare and health-related quality of life measures after controlling for other independent variables. The authors included women veterans not in active military duty (N = 3,747) and a matched sample of women non-veterans (N = 3,747), selected using a propensity score method so that they would have distributions of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics similar to those of the veterans. Overall, 14% of women reported financial barriers. Women who reported financial barriers to receiving healthcare were more likely to have poor health-related quality of life in all four dimensions than those who did not report such barriers. Compared to women non-veterans, women veterans did not differ in reported financial barriers but were more likely to report poor health-related quality of life. Reporting financial barriers to receiving needed healthcare was significantly associated with poor health-related quality of life among women. Veteran status was also significantly associated with poor health-related quality of life. These findings suggest the need for healthcare policy makers and practitioners to align emerging new models of healthcare delivery to improve health-related quality of life for women veterans.
Department of Biostatistics, Universityof Texas, 1400 Pressler Street, Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA. chanshen@gmail.com
Chan
C
Shen
Usha
U
Sambamoorthi
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D040343:Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics; D006304:Health Status; D054625:Healthcare Disparities; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D016015:Logistic Models; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States; D014493:United States Department of Veterans Affairs; D014728:Veterans / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult