Scottish Health Survey – telephone survey – August/September 2020: technical report

1.3 topic coverage

1.3.1 Introduction

With the different mode of collection, attempts were made to maintain the broad scope of the survey. However, the requirement for a shorter questionnaire meant that in some topic areas the questions were less detailed than in previous years.

General health, long-term conditions (including cardiovascular disease (CVD) and respiratory conditions) and mental health (including social capital and loneliness) have all been topics of interest throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and hence featured prominently in the SHeS 2020 telephone survey. Analysis of data on these topics make up the first three chapters of the report. Ischaemic heart disease (or coronary heart disease) and stroke, the two main components of CVD are both clinical priorities for the NHS in Scotland^[4],[5]. Behaviours associated with CVD (smoking, poor diet, lack of physical activity, obesity and alcohol use) remained a key focus of the survey, and these are covered in chapters 4-7. The final chapter in the report focuses on dental health.

It is important to note that the data presented in this report was collected over a short period in 2020 (from the 5^th of August to the 23^rd of September) and that it was not possible to capture data at the outset, and in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when restrictions were at their most wide-ranging.

1.3.2 Documentation

Copies of all the documents used in data collection are included in Appendix A. A summary of the main interview content is provided below.

1.3.3 Main interview

Information was collected at both the household and individual level. Table 1 below summarises the content of the individual level interviews for all participants.

Table 1: Content of the 2020 SHeS Telephone Interview

Main interview outline

• Household questionnaire including household composition
• General health
• CVD and diabetes
• Asthma and COVID-19
• Physical activity
• Diet
• Smoking
• Alcohol
• Dental health
• Food insecurity
• Social capital and loneliness
• Mental wellbeing
• Self-reported height and weight
• Ethnic background and religion
• Data linkage & follow-up research consent

The majority of the questions included in the survey used the same wording as the face-to-face interviews in the series. However, there were some key changes/additions as follows:

• Physical activity – due to limitations on survey length, the SHeS adult physical activity module was replaced with a shorter set of questions from the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) that were previously used in the Health Survey for England (HSE) in 2018^[6].
• Additional changes relating to COVID-19 specifically including:
  • changes to available answer options for the employment question
  • inclusion of a question on whether a participant had experienced/been diagnosed with COVID-19
  • inclusion of a question on whether a participant had received a shielding letter/text
  • inclusion of questions on changes to smoking behaviour, drinking behaviour and weight since lockdown began.
• Heights and weights were self-reported since using the standard in-home method of collecting these measurements was not possible.

The full wording of all the questions used in the SHeS 2020 telephone survey can be found in Appendix A.