Study title

Welfare and Services in Finland is a survey that combines telephone and face-to-face interviews, postal surveys and register data. The aim of the study is to offer up-to-date, reliable and extensive research data on Finnish welfare and the use of welfare services. This dataset contains face-to-face survey aimed at the elderly. Main topics included housing, economic circumstances, health and health services, need for care and assistance, informal care, social networks, and quality of life. Relating to housing, questions charted housing tenure, number of rooms, floor area, plans of moving to some other housing, and the best housing alternative for elderly people who require care and assistance. Some questions studied the respondents' economic circumstances, for example, savings and ability to pay for food, medicine etc. They were also asked whether different services were close enough to their home (e.g. grocery shop, bank). Relating to health and health services, questions were asked about health status, limiting long-term illnesses or disabilities and their impact on daily life, exercise habits, alcohol consumption, and visits to a doctor, nurse or hospital in the previous 12 months. Further questions probed where the respondents would primarily try to get a doctor's appointment during daytime, whether they had been in hospital as an inpatient in the previous 12 months, and whether they had received sufficient care for health problems. Perceptions of the quality of public and private health services were surveyed. Need for care and assistance was charted by asking about managing with daily activities without help, help received for different activities, person or organisation that helped the respondents the most, services used in the previous 12 months and sufficiency of the services, financial problems caused by service fees, and person or organisation from whom the respondents would ask information regarding health and available services. Further questions...