National Media Coverage of the Veterans Affairs Waitlist Scandal: Effects on Veterans' Distrust of the VA Health Care System.

ABSTRACT:

Background

On April 23, 2014, US media outlets broadcast reports of excessive wait times and "secret" waitlists at some Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals, precipitating legislation to increase Veterans' access to private sector health care.

Objective

The aims were to assess changes in Veterans' distrust in the VA health care system before and after the media coverage and explore sex and racial/ethnic differences in the temporal patterns.

Methods

Veterans completed semistructured interviews on health care satisfaction from June 2013 to January 2015, including a validated scale of health system distrust (range: 1-5). We used linear splines with knots at 90-day intervals to assess changes in distrust before and after April 23, 2014 ("day 0") in linear mixed models. To expl

SUBMITTER: Jones AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8121177 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature