Scottish Health Survey 2018: questionnaire changes report

3. Summary of Questionnaire Changes

Summaries for individual topic areas are included in the following chapters, with Table 1 summarising all changes.

Overall, steps were required to shorten the survey length as interviews were running over time. In light of this we have removed the following topics with little evidence of support or use received through the consultation process:

• Contraception
• Cosmetic procedures
• Urine sample (this may be re-introduced in future years, pending investigation into its effectiveness)

Additionally, some sets of questions have been made less frequent, moving from annual collection to biennial (with the exception of the gambling questions, which have now moved to every four years):

• Gambling
• Parental History
• CPR and use of health services
• Certain alcohol questions (the AUDIT questionnaire on problem drinking, and questions regarding where and with whom most of the respondent's drinking occurs).

In contrast, additions to the survey have tended to be individual questions rather than sets of questions on a new topic. This has again been influenced by time constraints.

The following questions have been added:

• A gender identity question in the self-completion booklet.

This is in order to allow expression of non-binary gender identities.

• A question establishing whether respondent experienced loneliness during the past week will be added to the social capital module which will next be included in 2019.

This in line with a consultation suggestion from NHS Health Scotland and will also be included in the Scottish Household Survey.

• A question for those who have used a form of Nicotine Replacement Therapy ( NRT) or similar, to establish whether that specific NRT helped them quit for over a month.

This stemmed from interest from the relevant policy team in establishing success rates for different types of NRT and received support in discussions at the survey's Project Board.

• Two questions relating to asthma: 1) how many days children had been absent from school due to asthma and 2) which health providers/ professionals had provided any treatment received for asthma or wheezing.

These additions stem from consultation responses including that of Asthma UK.

• A question for those with diabetes to establish whether they suffer from Type 1 or Type 2.

This is in line with a request from NHS Health Scotland.

A number of alterations have been made to existing survey questions. These are fairly minor for the most part. Examples include removing less-popular alcoholic drinks from the questions regarding drinking, and including phones and tablets as examples of screen use.

The most notable alterations are to the questions regarding Discrimination and Harassment, and Dental Health. The Discrimination and Harassment questions have seen only slight changes to their wording. However, they are now consistent with the questions used in the Scottish Household Survey. This provides the possibility of combining the responses to produce a larger sample. This could be of particular benefit for these questions, as the groups of most interest are likely to be minority groups with potentially small samples in the individual surveys.

Within the Dental Health topic, two questions regarding the appearance of the respondent's teeth and problems they had experienced biting or chewing food have been replaced with one question focusing on wider impacts of problems with the mouth, teeth or dentures. This was in response to consultation feedback and provides information on a wider range of problems that can be experienced.

In addition, the Scottish Health Survey includes a number of questions which form the Scottish Surveys Core Questions ( SSCQ). These are a limited set of questions included in all three major population surveys (Scottish Health Survey, Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, and Scottish Household Survey) in order to provide a large sample for these key questions. New questions on perceptions of local services have been added to SSCQ for 2018 and pre-existing questions relating to confidence in the police have been removed. These changes are reflected in the 2018 Scottish Health Survey questionnaire.

The consultation process has identified a number of worthwhile topics with potential for inclusion in future, should space become available.

Table 1: Summary of changes to the 2018 Scottish Health Survey Questionnaire

1. Frequency is either described as 'Core' meaning it is asked of all respondents in a given year or 'Version A' meaning it is only asked of around 60% of respondents in a given year.