Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey 2018: national report

4. Demographic & Health Information from Survey Respondents

As the survey is a voluntary sample survey, it is important to consider the results in the context of the demographics of respondents. This chapter provides a summary of demographic information, either self-reported through the survey by respondents or linked to from other data sources^[10]. Unlike the rest of the survey results in this report, this analysis is based on unweighted data.

Age and Gender

Respondents were asked what best described their gender: male, female or other. Males made up 46 per cent of respondents and females 54 per cent.

Respondent age was taken from the individual’s CHI record, as advised in the survey’s Privacy Notice, and was calculated as their age when the sample was drawn. Three in five respondents (60 per cent) were aged 65 or more (Figure 4.1) and only five per cent of respondents were aged under 45.

Figure 4.1: Age of respondents

Comparing these figures to those for the sample population shows that the age and gender of respondents were broadly consistent with the survey’s sample population.

Sexual Orientation

The vast majority of respondents (96 per cent) described themselves as heterosexual or straight. Three per cent described themselves as gay or lesbian, and less than one per cent of respondents described themselves as bisexual or other.

Ethnicity

Almost all respondents (99 per cent) described their ethnic group as white.

Work Status

Almost two in three respondents (64 per cent) were retired and around one in four were in full or part time employment (21 per cent employed; 4 per cent self-employed) (Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.2: Work status of respondents

Long-term Conditions

Just under half of respondents (47 per cent) said that they had one or more long-term health conditions. Of the conditions listed, the most commonly reported were chronic pain lasting at least three months and deafness or a severe hearing impairment, which were both reported by 15 per cent of respondents (Table 1). Just over two in five respondents (22 per cent) reported that they had a long term condition not listed.

Table 4.1: Long-term health conditions^[11]

	%
Deafness or severe hearing impairment	15
Chronic pain lasting at least 3 months	15
A physical disability	10
A mental health condition	5
Blindness or severe vision impairment	3
A learning disability	0
Another long-term condition	22
None of the above	53

Deprivation and Rurality

Analysis of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD)^[12] and Urban/Rural Indicator^[13] was based on the datazone of the respondents home address at the time of their cancer treatment. Respondents were broadly representative of the sample population, although the most deprived quintile had a slightly lower proportion of respondents, and the two least deprived quintiles had slightly higher proportions of respondents (Figure 4.3).

Figure 4.3: SIMD Quintile of respondents against sample population

The distribution of respondents by rurality is broadly in line with that for the sample population as a whole (Figure 4.4).

Figure 4.4: Urban-Rural category of respondents against sample population

Tumour Group

Respondent tumour group was taken from the individual’s Scottish Cancer Registry record, as advised in the survey’s Privacy Notice. Looking at respondents by tumour group, they are in line with those of the sample population (Figure 4.5).

Figure 4.5: Tumour group of respondents against sample population

Note: The ‘Other’ category includes all tumour groups with less than 50 respondents and respondents for whom a tumour group is not known.