Exploring the Role of Executive Functioning Capacity in Patient Activation and Health Outcomes Among Medicaid Members With Multiple Comorbidities

Patient activation, the perceived capacity to manage one’s health, is positively associated with better health outcomes and lower costs. Underlying characteristics influencing patient activation are not completely understood leading to gaps in intervention strategies designed to improve patient activation. We suggest that variability in executive functioning influences patient activation and ultimately has an impact on health outcomes. To examine this hypothesis, 440 chronically ill Medicaid enrollees completed measures of executive functioning, patient activation, and health-related quality of life. Mediation analyses revealed that executive functioning: (a) directly affected patient activation and mental health-related quality of life, (b) indirectly affected mental health-related quality of life through patient activation, and (c) was unrelated to physical health-related quality of life. These data indicate that further study of the relationships among neurocognitive processes, patient activation, and health-related quality of life is needed and reinforces previous work demonstrating the association between patient activation and self-reported outcomes