Measuring the health of Scottish drug users

Information on how individuals perceive their own health is important for providing appropriate health-related support and monitoring health over time. The Short Form 36 (SF-36) Health Status Questionnaire is one of the most widely used generic measures of self-perceived health status. Despite this, there has been no large-scale research documenting the SF-36 scores of problem drug users in the UK. The present paper has two aims: (1) to compare the self-perceived health of a sample of problem drug users with that of a sample from the general population; and (2) to investigate differences between the self-perceived health of various subgroups of problem drug users. In total, 1179 individuals starting a new episode of drug misuse treatment in Scotland were invited to complete a structured questionnaire that included the SF-36. Out of these, 1033 (87.6%) agreed and 990 successfully completed all SF-36 questions. The 990 completers were more likely than the 43 partial completers to be male [odds ratio (OR) = 0.45; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) = 0.24-0.85) and not in prison (OR = 0.36; 95% CI = 0.19-0.68). The reliability of the SF-36--measured by internal consistency--was very good (Cronbach's alpha > 0.7 for all eight dimensions). Comparing the respondents' mean dimension scores with those of a sample from the UK general population revealed that the drug users' health was consistently worse than that of the general population (> 20 points on seven out of the eight scales). Differences between the mean SF-36 scores of various subcategories of respondents were analysed using t-tests or an analysis of variance, as appropriate. The factors considered were: sex; age; imprisonment; relationship status; homelessness; and recent drug injection. Significant differences between particular groups of respondents were identified. Despite limitations with the data presented, the paper highlights the utility of the SF36 for drug misuse treatment providers.