United States Veteran Perceptions of the Veterans Health Administration Spinal Cord Injuries and Disorders Annual Evaluation.

Context: Veterans Health Administration (VHA) offers Annual Evaluations (AEs) to Veterans with spinal cord injuries and disorders (SCI/D) for preventive services, managing common complications, psychosocial services, and addressing equipment needs.

Objective: Obtain Veteran perceptions of AE services and examine their association with Veteran characteristics and receipt of AEs.

Methods: Surveys were sent to n = 8,421 Veterans in the VHA SCI/D Registry electronically (n = 8,121) or through US mail (n = 300), with a 23.64% response rate. After excluding participants with missing data, n = 1,687 Veterans were included in descriptive and logistic regression analyses.

Results: Respondents were aged 60.7 years (SD=11.60) on average; most were male (91.2%), white (75.9%), and non-Hispanic (90.5%). 72.4% indicated receiving their most recent SCI/D AE about one year ago, 24.8% more than one year ago, and 3.4% had never had an AE. The most frequently reported reasons for not receiving an AE were COVID-19 related concerns (46.1%), and that AE was not offered (23.4%). Most (73.7%) indicated the AE was "Very Important" for their health and well-being. Veterans living more than 120  min from their VA had lower odds (0.51, 95% CI 0.32-0.80) of reporting recent AEs compared to Veterans who lived within 30  min.

Conclusions: Veterans expressed high levels of satisfaction with the AE and found many aspects to be valuable. Additional strategies are needed to address travel barriers and COVID-19 related access challenges to bolster AE receipt. Future research and efforts to leverage technology for reminders may improve AE uptake.