A measure of perceived health in evaluating general practice: the Nottingham Health Profile

The paper describes two ways in which the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) may be useful in evaluating general practice: it can provide useful and relevant information about the needs of patients, and can also be used to evaluate outcome by examining the relationship between changes in perceived health status before and 4 weeks after a consultation in relation to care received during that consultation. Findings are based on a sample of 1979 consulters who completed the Nottingham Health Profile prior to consultation and 732 consulters aged 16 years who also completed a Nottingham Health Profile 4 weeks after consultation. Comparisons are made according to the age, sex and illness status of the consulters, length of consultation and psychosocial care received. As a measure of need, significant differences were found in the health profile according to age, sex and illness status, length of consultation and doctors perception of the presence of relevant psychosocial issues. The only variable which was significantly related to short-term outcome was reported presence of a long term illness relevant to the consultation. The NHP is shown to have shortcomings as a measure of outcome for a cross-section of general practice consulters; it is, however, useful in demonstrating how processes of care relate to need in general practice.