Long-term health condition: number of conditions
Definition
A long term condition is any condition(s) which has lasted, or is expected to last at least 12 months. People were asked to tick all boxes that applied to them, of which there were 10. This variable reports how many boxes have been ticked i.e. how many conditions from the list they have. For LTCOND2 each tick simply counts as 1 i.e. a person could have ticked one box to refer to several long-term health conditions but this will only be recorded as 1. If the individual has ticked one of the boxes stating they have a condition as well as the ‘No condition’ box the ‘No condition’ tick will be ignored.
Classification
Total number of categories 10
| Code | Name |
|---|---|
| 00 | No conditions |
| 01 | Single category of condition |
| 02 | 2 categories of condition |
| 03 | 3 categories of condition |
| 04 | 4 categories of condition |
| 05 | 5 categories of condition |
| 06 | 6 categories of condition |
| 07 | 7 categories of condition |
| 08 | 8 categories of condition |
| 09 | 9 categories of condition |
Source question or variables
20: Do you have any of the following conditions which have lasted, or are expected to last, at least 12 months?
Tick all that apply.
- Deafness or partial hearing loss
- Blindness or partial sight loss
- Learning disability (for example, Down's Syndrome)
- Learning difficulty (for example, dyslexia)
- Developmental disorder (for example, Autistic Spectrum Disorder or Asperger's Syndrome)
- Physical disability
- Mental health condition
- Long-term illness, disease or condition
- Other condition, please write in
Reason for asking
The question is aimed at meeting user demand, and to help improve the planning and provision of services for people with a specific long-term health condition.
England & Wales (2011) and Scotland (2001) comparisons
This question was new to Scotland’s 2011 census so there is no comparison to be made with 2001 questions and England & Wales don’t have a similar question included in their questionnaire. Northern Ireland did have a question on long-term health conditions in their questionnaire, but with a different set of response categories which limits comparability with data for Scotland.
Known Quality Issues
It is known that a response to question 20 was missing for a significant number of people in submitted census questionnaires. This report Long Term Condition Quality Report provides some technical details on the measures that were taken to address this quality issue during data processing.