Am J Psychiatry 1997; 154:1025-1027
Copyright © 1997 by American Psychiatric Association
Increased health care utilization as a function of participation in trauma research
RA Sansone, LA Sansone and MW Wiederman
Department of Psychiatry, University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, Tulsa, Okla., USA.
OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to compare, in a primary care setting,
the health care utilization of women who participated in a trauma research
study with the health care utilization of women who did not. METHOD: Health
care utilization in the 12 months before and the 12 months after
participation in trauma research was determined for both participants (N =
116) and a group of control subjects (N = 100) matched for day of service.
RESULTS: Pairwise t test results indicated that for the women who
participated in the research, all measures of health care utilization
significantly increased in the 12 months after the trauma study; for the
control subjects, only the number of ongoing prescriptions significantly
increased. Sign tests confirmed that a significantly greater number of
research participants demonstrated a positive difference (increase in
utilization) for all health care variables, whereas only ongoing
prescriptions demonstrated a significant systematic increase among control
subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that participation in trauma
research may increase subsequent health care utilization.
