Veterans' Experiences with a Social Need Intervention

Healthcare-based screening and referral (S&R) for social needs is accelerating. A goal of these initiatives is to connect patients to resources that can assist identified social needs. To date, S&R for a broad number of social needs has been understudied among Veterans enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA).

Understand the conditions that facilitate and impede Veterans' connecting to resources to assist with their social needs.

Qualitative interviews conducted as part of an explanatory sequential mixed methods randomized controlled trial (RCT) assessing the efficacy of S&R among Veterans on the primary outcome of resource connection.

A purposeful sample of Veterans enrolled in the RCT (N = 32) representing a mixture of RCT participants who did and did not connect to resources.

Guided by Andersen's model of service utilization, domains of inquiry centered on the predisposing, enabling, and need factors that thwarted and facilitated resource connection.

We identified four themes reflecting potential barriers to resource connection: military culture of self-reliance, resource inadequacy including mistrust that available resources can meet needs, competing demands, and complex resource application processes. Across participants, regardless of resource connection, participants valued and derived emotional well-being from being asked about their needs. Participants also offered suggestions for strategies to facilitate Veterans' connection to social need resources.

Study findings inform potential strategies for improving future social need intervention design and implementation. This includes increasing Veteran awareness of the link between health and social needs to increase engagement in social need resources, strengthening ties with community-based agencies to shrink the gap between Veteran unmet social needs and the adequacy of social need resources, and leveraging trusted entities such as Veteran Service Organizations. Findings also suggest outcomes from S&R interventions over-and-above connection to resources that are valuable to patients, such as improved patient experience.

Registry, Clinicaltrials.gov; trial registration number, NCT04977583; date of registration, 7/16/2021.