More research is needed...

Tuesday 17 December 2019

A study into residents health and wellbeing has found a worryingly high proportion of people have 'unmet health care needs', meaning they don't go and see a doctor when they have something they want to ask about.

The data was collected last year, using a questionnaire based on 67 items, covering things like weight, mental health and other well being areas.

It was the seventh time the survey has been carried out and this time some new questions were included, covering areas such as the affordability of health care and household finances. 

One of the questions the survey asked was whether respondents had any current health concerns that they had not seen a doctor about.

Overall 18% of respondents said that yes they had a health concern they had not seen a GP about. This was higher in certain subgroups, including:

• those under the age of 35;
• those who reported drinking to high risk levels;
• those who smoke or vape;
• those who don’t have private health insurance;
• those with low mental wellbeing; and
• those with a long-term illness, disability or infirmity

The survey was carried out Island Global Research on behalf of the States of Guernsey. It raises a number of possibilities about why people within those groups are not always going to see their GP when they need to, but said "more research is needed".

The survey also found that people living in affordable housing were more likely to have a health concern they hadn’t seen a doctor about.

"When we consider that this group were also more likely to have been to the GP five or more times in the past year we get a mixed picture of frequent visits and unmet need occurring side-by-side. Further work would be needed to better understand this."

Pictured: Some people are not going to the doctors, when they need to, and more research is needed to find out exactly why, but money is one factor being considered. 

Those with one or more child aged under-16 in the household were also significantly more likely to report having a health concern they had not seen a GP about (23% with U-16s in the house compared to 17% with no U-16s in the house). The survey authors said:

"This seems counterintuitive to the fact that households with under-16s were less likely to pay for their own GP appointments and more likely to have private health insurance compared to households with no under-16s. These conflicting results are currently difficult to interpret.

"Is it that households with children struggle to find the time to go to the doctor even when they have health insurance? Does this reflect the effect of a ceiling cap on the number of annual visits covered under some insurance schemes? Is there a high level of unmet need concentrated among uninsured families in this group? Or a combination of these and other factors? More research is needed."