Scottish Patient Experience Survey of GP and Local NHS Services 2011/12 Volume 3: Variation in the Experiences of Primary Care Patients

12 Detailed Findings - Health Status

12.1 People were asked to rate their health in general. The health status of respondents is shown in Table 10.

Table 10 Health status of respondents

12.2 For the analysis, groups were compared with the largest group, which were people who answered that their health was good. Health status had an effect on experience in all of the 39 questions modelled. The effect that health status had on experience was generally quite strong.

12.3 Both the 'Fair' and 'Bad health' status groups had less positive experiences for each of the 39 questions, with those reporting bad health status having poorer experiences than those reporting a fair one.

12.4 It is difficult to fully explain the differences in experiences here. They may be accounted for by the greater complexity of need or greater exposure to health services, increasing chances of having a negative experience.

12.5 The finding that health status is a major determinant of experience corresponds with studies elsewhere. The analysis of the English GP Practice survey found that self-reported health status had a strong association with patient experience scores (Lyratzopoulos et al 2012). We also found the same in our analysis of the Scottish Inpatient Patient Experience Survey (Scottish Government 2011).