Understanding Quality and Equity in Wheelchairs for Veterans

Completed

Conditions studied: Spinal Cord Injuries, Amputees

In brief

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides wheelchairs to about 42,000 Veterans with SCI and more than 40,000 Veterans with amputated limbs (AL). Despite VA's efforts to remove financial and other barriers to the provision of wheelchairs to all Veterans who need them, preliminary evidence suggests that disparities exist in the quality of wheelchairs prescribed to racial minorities and low income Veterans with SCI or AL. The proposed project will provide important information to the VA about the quality and equity of wheelchairs provided to Veterans with SCI or AL, and it will identify the patient and provider factors associated with wheelchair provision. Because Veterans with SCI and AL are considered special disability populations, identifying and understanding these factors is a critical first step to developing interventions to increase the quality and equity of wheelchairs provided to all disabled Veterans.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT01236170

Run by

VA Office of Research and Development

People needed

497

Starts

2011-03-01

Expected to finish

2013-09-01

Last updated by the study team

2019-06-27

Who can join

Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Veterans
• age >18 years
• must have SCI with discernible neurological impairments or an amputated lower limb which results in the use of a wheelchair
• must be in power or manual wheelchair >1 year and treated at the participating VAMC
• participants must use a manual or power wheelchair as their primary means of mobility (e.g., use wheelchair > 40 hours/week
• and be non-ambulatory except for exercise purposes

You may not qualify if…

• In wheelchair less than 1 year
• Able to ambulate without the use of a wheelchair
• Other disorders requiring the use of a wheelchair (e.g., MS)

Where it is running

• James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital, Tampa, FL — Tampa, Florida, United States
• James J. Peters VA Medical Center, Bronx, NY — The Bronx, New York, United States
• Louis Stokes VA Medical Center, Cleveland, OH — Cleveland, Ohio, United States
• Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion — Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
• Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center, Richmond, VA — Richmond, Virginia, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

Trial information comes from ClinicalTrials.gov and is refreshed daily. TrialsForMe does not provide medical care and does not run the studies it lists.