Health and care experience survey 2017 to 2018: national results

3. Demographic & Health Information from Survey Respondents

We asked respondents a number of questions about themselves. This chapter provides a summary of their responses. Unlike the rest of the survey results in this report, this analysis is based on unweighted data unless otherwise noted.

Age and Gender

Women were over represented in the survey compared to the 2016 population estimates from the National Records of Scotland ^[4] . These estimates show that 52 per cent of the population aged 16 and over are female, however 57 per cent of respondents to the survey were female.

Similarly, the majority of respondents were aged 65 or more (43 per cent) or between 45 and 64 (39 per cent). These older age groups are over represented compared to the 2016 population estimates. Those estimates show a smaller proportion of population in the age groups 65 and more (22 per cent) and 45-64 (33 per cent) based on the population aged 16 and over.

The new weighting methodology ^[5] introduced in this survey attempts to adjust for these differences between the survey and population demographics.

Deprivation and Rurality

Analysis of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) ^[6] and Urban/Rural Indicator ^[7] was based on the datazone of respondents. Respondents were fairly evenly distributed across SIMD quintiles, although there was a slightly lower proportion of respondents from the most deprived quintile (17 per cent) and more from the middle quintile (24 per cent).

The distribution of respondents by rurality is broadly in line with that for the population as a whole, although the most rural areas were slightly over-represented. The "other urban areas" category, on the other hand, was slightly under-represented.

Health Information

Respondents were asked to rate their health in general. Sixty six per cent rated their health as good or excellent, 26 per cent rated it as fair and eight per cent rated it as bad.

Just under half of respondents said that they had one or more long-term health conditions. The prevalence of these increased with age, from 30 per cent of respondents aged between 17 and 34, to 57 per cent aged over 65. The most commonly reported conditions were chronic pain lasting at least three months (reported by 15 per cent of respondents) and deafness or a severe hearing impairment (reported by 12 per cent of respondents).

Finally, people were asked to rate their quality of life as a whole. Of those who responded, 78 per cent said that their quality of life was good or excellent, 17 per cent said it was fair, and four per cent rated it as poor or very poor.

People's ability to look after their own health

People were asked how well in general they felt they were able to look after their own health. Most respondents (92 per cent) said that they could look after their own health very well or quite well.

This question informs one of the Core Suite of Integration Indicators referred to in Section 4 of this report. In order to ensure that this Indicator accurately represents everyone in Scotland, the results for this question have also be calculated as a weighted percentage. On this basis, 93 per cent of people said that they could look after their own health very well or quite well.