Authors' objectives:

The goal of this report is to study the relationships between self-rated health and morbidity, health care use, health-related behaviors and socioeconomic status in the Spanish population.

Authors' recommendations: The health care attendance and morbidity variables, which are the ones more directly related to one-s state of health, show a constant and strong relationship with SH in all the groups analyzed. These results are in agreement with those from previous studies. In spite of their low frequency, chronic diseases are a strong indicator for state of health, although in order to study the factors influencing SH, it is best to analyze them separately. The results of this report indicate a negative relationship between SH and age until a certain age is reached (approximately 52 years of age). From this age onwards, this variable stops influencing SH in a significant way. These results disagree with previous one where studies have found that SH improves after reaching the age of 75. No differences were found between men and women. It is possible that the results from other studies which found significant differences may be due to the fact that they used different models for men and women. Valuing one-s health mainly reflects one-s ability to cope with daily life, more than an objective or true state of health. The differences in the relationship between SH and independent variables, in the different groups analyzed, could support the idea that the evaluation a person makes of his or her state of health depends, to a certain extent, on his or her group of reference. That is, on sociocultural factors, as well as on psychological and individual characteristics. The models elaborated in the study, with the available variables, explain about 30 % of the SH variance. This indicates that other variables, with a more psychosocial content, influence the way we value our state of health.

Authors' methods: Survey

Project Status: Completed

URL for project: http://www.isciii.es/aets

Year Published: 2001

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: Spain

Organisation Name: Agencia de Evaluacion de Tecnologias Sanitarias

Contact Address: Instituto de Salud "Carlos III", Calle Sinesio Delgado 6, Pabellon 4, 28029 Madrid, Spain. Tel: +34 9 1 822 2005; Fax: +34 9 1 387 7841;

Contact Name: Luis M. Sánchez Gómez

Contact Email: luism.sanchez@isciii.es

Copyright: Agencia de Evaluacion de Tecnologias Sanitarias (AETS)