Interrelationships between symptom burden and health functioning and health care utilization among veterans with persistent physical symptoms.

Background: Between 10 and 50% of primary care patients present with persistent physical symptoms (PPS). Patients with PPS tend to utilize excessive or inappropriate health care services, while being stuck in a deleterious cycle of inactivity, deconditioning, and further worsening of symptoms and disability. Since military deployment (relative to non-deployment) is associated with greater likelihood of PPS, we examined the interrelationships of health care utilization, symptom burden and functioning among a sample of recently deployed Veterans with new onset persistent physical symptoms.

Methods: This study analyzed a cohort of 790 U.S. soldiers who recently returned from deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Data for this analysis were obtained at pre- and post-deployment. We used moderation analyses to evaluate interactions between physical symptom burden and physical and mental health functioning and four types of health care utilization one-year after deployment, after adjusting for key baseline measures.

Results: Moderation analyses revealed significant triple interactions between physical symptom burden and health functioning and: primary care (F = 3.63 [2, 303], RΔ = .02, p = 0.03), specialty care (F = 6.81 [2, 303] RΔ =0.03, p < .001), allied therapy care (F = 3.76 [2, 302], RΔ = .02, p = 0.02), but not mental health care (F = 1.82 [1, 303], RΔ = .01, p = .16), one-year after deployment.

Conclusions: Among U.S. Veterans with newly emerging persistent physical symptoms one-year after deployment, increased physical symptom burden coupled with decreased physical and increased mental health functioning was associated with increased medical care use in the year after deployment. These findings support whole health initiatives aimed at improving health function/well-being, rather than merely symptom alleviation.