Scottish cancer patient experience survey 2015-2016: exploring differences in patient experiences

Pre-Existing Conditions

Respondents were asked to select all the pre-existing health conditions they had from a list provided. Those who selected only one condition have been assigned to that sub-category and those who selected more than one condition have been categorised as having multiple conditions. Individuals who selected that they had none of the conditions listed were used as the reference group.

This factor affected the likelihood of responding positively to 20 out of the 47 questions analysed. Only one of these questions was answered more positively by people with a pre-existing condition – whether anyone had discussed taking part in cancer research with them since their diagnosis; those with a physical disability were more positive compared to those with no pre-existing conditions.

All of the other questions were more negative for people with at least one pre-existing condition. These questions are spread across the survey with no clear patterns related to particular areas of care.

Looking at the distribution of number of questions affected by pre-existing health conditions, as shown in Figure 3, those with multiple conditions are more negative for the most questions, followed by those with chronic pain lasting for more than 3 months. Those with mental health conditions do not show any significant difference compared to those with no pre-existing conditions for any questions.

Figure 3: No. of questions affected by pre-existing health conditions when compared to those with no pre-existing conditions