Health Services Research Commons^™

The Determinants Of Post-Discharge Healthcare Utilization And Outcomes For Veterans With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Social Ecological Perspective, Shyuemeng Luu

Theses and Dissertations

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has a persistent nature: PTSD troubles patients

even decades after the occurrence of traumatic events. The “health behavioral model” is

adopted to examine the effects of external environmental, predisposing, enabling, and

need for care factors on the use of VA post-discharge ambulatory care and readmissions.

Data were obtained from the Patient Treatment File (PTF) and the Outpatient Care File

(OPT), the Area Resource File (ARF), American Hospital Association data sets (AHA), and the Uniform Crime Report (UCR).

The use of VA post-discharge ambulatory care is analyzed by using structural equation modeling (SEM). The readmission to VAMCs …