Housing options for people leaving the Armed Forces, veterans and their families
Abstract: The advice offered on this information page applies to; people who will soon be leaving the Armed Forces, people who used to serve in the Armed Forces (veterans) and the dependants of people who will soon be leaving the Armed Forces and veterans. If you have housing questions or problems, there is help available for you if you are in the Armed Forces, a veteran or a family member of someone in the Armed Forces or a veteran. You can use this information to find out about the help available to you, depending on your situation. You can also use this information to find out about organisations that can help you with your housing needs.
Abstract: Context: In response to the opioid crisis, federal guidelines were implemented, including the Veterans Health Administration's (VA) Opioid Safety Initiative in 2013. The impact of policies on patients near the end of life is unknown. Objective: Examine temporal trends in opioid prescribing, pain, and opioid overdoses among Veterans near the end of life. Methods: Retrospective, time series analysis of VA decedents between October 2009 and September 2018 whose next-of-kin participated in VA's Bereaved Family Survey (BFS). Using multivariate regression to adjust for sociodemographic and clinical covariates, we examined temporal trends in outpatient opioid prescribing, uncontrolled pain based on BFS report, and opioid overdose-related hospitalizations, in the last month of life, overall and by clinical diagnosis (cancer versus non-cancer). Results: Among 79,409 decedents, mean daily outpatient opioid dose in morphine milligram equivalents in the last month of life decreased from 4.6 mg in 2010 to 2.1 mg in 2018 (adjusted change -0.20 mg/year; P