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. This dataset contains a face-to-face survey aimed at the elderly. Main topics included housing, financial 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, satisfaction with various aspects of the housing and the neighbourhood, satisfaction with distances to different services (e.g. grocery shop, bank), and difficulties with the home. The respondents' economic circumstances were surveyed by asking whether they were able to save money after expenses and whether they had run out of money for food in the previous 12 months. 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, smoking, 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 been in hospital as an inpatient in the previous 12 months, whether certain things (e.g. lack of money) had prevented them from receiving treatment, and whether they had had to wait unreasonably long to receive treatment (e.g. to get a doctor's appointment in a health centre). Perceptions of the quality of public and private health services were surveyed. Visits to a dentist were charted. Need for care and assistance was charted by asking about managing with daily activities without help, help received for different activities, sufficiency of and satisfaction with the assistance received, person or organisation who helped the...