Understanding long-standing illness among older people

Rachael Gooberman-Hill, Salma Ayis and Shah Ebrahim

Social Science & Medicine, 2003, vol. 56, issue 12, 2555-2564

Abstract: This paper describes a study of older people's interpretations of a survey question about long-standing illness, disability or infirmity. This and similar questions are frequently used in various studies and surveys that influence policy and planning. With population ageing and growing concern about the health of older people, we sought to examine the survey question's relevance to older people. Following-on from a cross-sectional survey of 999 people aged 65 and over in the UK, we explored their interpretations of the survey item by asking it in the context of in-depth interviews with 24 respondents. We found that few of our respondents subscribed to the constructs of long-standing illness, disability or infirmity that surveys often employ. Older people's descriptions of their health status in response to a "standard-issue" survey question are informed by their understandings of health itself as well as elements such as control, engagement with health service providers, time and ageing. This implies that questionnaire-based surveys may not only be unable to capture the meaning of chronic illness to older people, but also its prevalence. We conclude on a methodological note by reminding ourselves that answers to survey and in-depth interviews are narratives told about health status. As such, both represent many facets of social and cultural life, and are best assessed as "trustworthy" rather than "truthful".

Keywords: Long-standing; illness; Self-reported; health; Chronic; illness; Ageing; UK (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(02)00296-4
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:56:y:2003:i:12:p:2555-2564

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().