Study title

Welfare and Services in Finland is a panel 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. In 2006, the data were collected through telephone interviews. This dataset concentrates on Finnish adults. Main topics included well-being, social relationships, health, use and accessibility of health services, use of and satisfaction with social services, informal care, social security, and social trust. Well-being was charted with questions focusing on the standard of living and housing. The respondents were asked whether they were able to save money and pay their expenses, how they thought the economic circumstances of the household would develop in the near future, whether the household could afford certain things (e.g. buy new clothes rather than used ones), and how satisfied they were with different aspects of their housing and neighbourhood of residence. Social relationships were investigated with questions about satisfaction with life, leisure time and work, feelings of loneliness, contacts with friends and relatives, membership of a club or association, and voting in the previous parliamentary elections. Relating to health and health services, questions were asked about health status, limiting long-term illnesses or disabilities and their effects on daily life, stress, pregnancies, and visits to a doctor or nurse 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 received sufficient care for health problems, what the distance to the closest health centre, doctor's office, dentist's office etc. was from their home, and whether they had had to wait unreasonably long to receive treatment (e.g. to get a doctor's appointment in a health centre). Dental health and visits to a dentist were...