Value Of Preventive Care Research Articles

Effectiveness of various language strategies for helping pet owners appreciate the value of preventive care.

To identify more effective language strategies for helping pet owners appreciate the value and importance of preventive veterinary care and encouraging more regular visits. 15 pet owners representing a mix of demographic and other characteristics. This qualitative study began with a communication and research audit, followed by interviews with subject matter experts, development of language stimuli (messages about the importance of veterinary care and encouraging pet owners to prioritize wellness visits), three 2-hour online focus group sessions with study participants (4 to 6/group) to test and discuss the language stimuli, and 1-hour one-on-one interviews with 5 of these participants to measure emotional responses to optimized stimuli. Language stimuli testing showed that simply telling pet owners how veterinary care is valuable does not work. What did work was focusing on the pet owner's relationship with their pet, tying preventive care into the animal's overall health and happiness, and emphasizing a veterinarian's experience versus their qualifications. Personalized recommendations were perceived as most valuable to owners. Addressing cost head-on, demonstrating understanding, empowering pet owners to ask questions, and providing payment options were identified as strategies that could help owners see they can afford routine care now. Results suggested that by focusing on experience, relationships, and personalized care, veterinarians can address pet owners' concerns while promoting the importance of preventive care, including regular checkups. Additional research is needed to evaluate the impact of this language on pet owner perceptions, behaviors, and outcomes in clinical settings.

The hidden costs of a hidden smile: The value of preventive care from the patient's perspective.

A culture of oral health neglect and one chipped tooth led Christine Collins to a devastating series of conditions that affected her physical and emotional well-being. The costs of this culture on a person's individual health - and the health-care system as a whole - demonstrate the true value of preventive oral health care.

Seeking, Delaying, and Avoiding Routine Health Care Services: Patient Perspectives

To explore/identify patient perspectives regarding seeking, delaying, and avoiding health care services, particularly barriers and facilitators. Face-to-face interviews with health plan survey respondents. An integrated health plan providing comprehensive care to 480,000 people in Oregon and Washington. Willing respondents randomly selected to maximize heterogeneity within the following strata: gender, health care utilization, and self-reported alcohol consumption (indicator of health practices). Participants were 75 men and 75 women (150 total), 21 to 64 years old, with ≥12 months of health plan membership. Participants were recruited by letter (52.5% agreed). Data collection stopped when planned interviews were completed; saturation (the point at which additional interviews were not producing novel information) was achieved for key study questions. Semi-structured interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded. Reviews of codes related to care seeking and feelings/attitudes about providers produced common themes. Facilitators of care seeking included welcoming staff, collaborative relationships with providers, and education about the value of preventive care. Barriers included costs, time needed for appointments, and cumbersome processes. Some participants delayed procedures, some avoided care until absolutely necessary, others framed care as routinely necessary. Increasing comfort, improving appointment and visit-related processes, having positive patient-physician relationships, and enhancing communication and clinician-provided education may facilitate appropriate use of preventive services. Further research is needed with larger, representative samples to evaluate findings.

Assumptions, Prevention, and the Need for Research

THIS MONTH, all journals published by the American Medical Association are dedicating their issues to articles on disease prevention and health promotion. Is your response ho-hum? Do you have the sensation that you are viewing yourself in a mirror? As pediatricians, we may find it hard to think critically about disease prevention and health promotion. Indeed, we pediatricians seem to assume prevention. That is, we not only take the value of preventive care as granted and true, but we have incorporated prevention into our modus operandi at such a basic level that we are identified with it. We think of ourselves as experts. Researching preventive services, which implies questioning, is almost offensive. Research might come more naturally to a specialty in which disease prevention and health promotion seem like novel ideas. However, the disease prevention and health promotion responsibilities we are assigning ourselves, as illustrated by Bright Futures: National