Homeless veterans' experiences with substance use, recovery, and treatment through photo elicitation

Homeless veterans often have addictions and comorbidities that complicate utilization of longitudinal health care services, such as primary care. An understanding of experiences of veterans enrolled in a Homeless Patient Aligned Care Team (H-PACT) may improve addiction treatment engagement in these settings. The authors aimed to describe H-PACT veterans' experiences with substance use (SU), substance use recovery (SUR), and substance use treatment (SUT).

Homeless veterans were recruited from a veteran primary care medical home clinic between September 2014 and March 2015. Twenty veterans were given digital cameras and prompts for taking photographs about their health and health care and participated in 2 photo elicitation interviews. For this secondary analysis, transcripts from the audio-recorded interviews were analyzed by 2 coders using qualitative content analysis.

The majority of participants (75%, n = 15) discussed SU, SUR, and/or SUT in regards to their health and health care utilization. SU themes centered on disclosure of addiction or dependency; substances used; repercussions of SU; SU as a coping mechanism; and association of SU with military service. SUR themes included disclosure of length of sobriety; perceived facilitators of SUR in health, beliefs, social, environmental, financial, and creative pursuit domains; and perceived barriers to SUR in beliefs, social, and environmental domains. SUT themes focused on perceived facilitators of SUT in access to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and non-VA services and social domains and perceived barriers to SUT in the social domain.

Providers seeking to elicit addiction-related clinical history and facilitate SUR and SUT might look to the current findings for guidance. Provider training in motivational interviewing may be warranted, which allows for an exploration of health-related consequences of SU and supports patients' self-efficacy.