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Poster

Comparison of Demographic and Health Profiles between Veterans and Non-Veterans Living with Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury in the United States

Tuesday, October 31, 2023
2:45 PM – 2:51 PM  
Location: Station 7

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Huacong Wen, PhD

    Postdoc fellow
    University of Alabama at Birmingham
    Birmingham, Alabama, United States

    • Non-presenting Author(s)

  • Yuying Chen, MD, PhD (she/her/hers)

    Professor
    University of Alabama at Birmingham
    Birmingham, Alabama, United States

  • stephen burns, MD

    SCI Service Director
    VA Puget Sound Health Care System
    Seattle, Washington, United States

  • Jennifer L. Sippel, PhD

    National Outcomes Director
    Veterans Health Administration SCI/D National Program Office
    Allen, Texas, United States

Research Objectives: To compare demographic and health characteristics between Veterans and non-Veterans living with traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) between 2015 and 2019.

Design: Cohort study.

Setting: Twenty SCI Model Systems (SCIMS) Centers throughout the United States (US).

Participants: Participants (n=11,444) from National SCIMS database, who (1) incurred a TSCI between 1972 and 2019, (2) were initially treated at one of the SCIMS centers, (3) were alive during the period from 2015 to 2019, and (4) completed an interview during the 2015-2019 wave of follow-up data collection.

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: Demographic (current age, sex, race/ethnicity, marital status, education, employment, institutional residence), injury-related (etiology, injury level, injury completeness, years of injury), and health (bladder management) factors.

Results: Of all participants with TSCI, 9.6% were Veterans. There were important differences (for categorical variable, >10% difference; for continuous variable, relative difference (the difference in 2 means divided by the standard deviation of the larger group)>0.5) between Veterans and non-Veterans. When compared with non-Veterans, Veterans were older (33.0 vs 46.3 years), more likely to be male (76.6% vs 95.7%), more likely to be non-Hispanic White (64.8% vs 76.0%), more likely to be married (34.0% vs 53.4%), more likely to be injured by fall (19.9% vs 33.5%), and more likely to have American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale D/E (26.4% vs 40.4%). Veterans in SCIMS database showed similar trends of US Veterans by referring to the Veterans Health Administration participant status as of 2022.

Conclusions: This study shows different demographic and health profile of Veterans and non-Veterans. These findings could provide clinical implications in healthcare management and allocate resources for health care and social supports for people with TSCI.

Author(s) Disclosures: Nothing to Disclose

Learning Objectives:

  • Upon completion, participant will be able to describe the demographic, injury-related, and health profile for people living with traumatic SCI in United States.
  • Upon completion, participant will be able to discuss the differences of characteristics between Veterans and non-Veterans in SCI Model Systems database.
  • Upon completion, participant will be able to discuss clinical implications of studying findings in the healthcare management of people with traumatic SCI