Ministry of Health - Ministry/First Health Interview Survey

THE FIRST NATIONAL HEALTH INTERVIEW SURVEY
(HIS Malta)

The Department of Health Information is the government organisation responsible for national health information and provides health statistics regarding mortality, cancers, obstetrics, congenital anomalies, organ transplants and hospital performance. These currently available routine reporting systems are important in describing the later stages of the disease processes such as hospitalisation or death however, little or no information regarding the early stages of the evolution process of disease is available locally.

H.I.S. MALTA

In Malta epidemiological information on health status and factors affecting health is limited. The latter is valuable information from a public health perspective, it is essential to have a good knowledge base on those conditions that are diagnosed and treated outside hospital or that never directly necessitate hospital contact or lead to death. Health Interview Surveys, used in several countries, are designed as the tool used to overcome this deficiency and obtain such valuable information regarding the nation’s health status that cannot be obtained from routinely collected information. Malta is now implementing its First National Health Interview Survey.

This survey aims to provide an unbiased holistic insight to the nationwide burden of chronic physical and mental conditions and their resulting morbidity, as well as to investigate the knowledge and behaviours of the Maltese population regarding health. This will be achieved by using internationally accepted and validated questionnaire techniques as recommended by international bodies including WHO (World Health Organisation) and EUROSTAT (Statistical Office of the European Communities).

The information obtained from such a survey will then serve, amongst others, the following purposes:

to provide policy makers with relevant information to make evidence based policy decisions on health prevention and healthcare services
to provide statistics for those health status indicators necessitating survey methods. These indicators are regularly requested by several local and international organisations.
to participate in collaborative programmes coordinated by international organisations such as Eurostat, World Health Organisation and others
to identify any health inequalities in Malta and,
to allow for comparative studies with other countries, identifying any problems particular to Malta.

In order to address country specific needs for health information, the HIS indicators were chosen primarily to provide data on key areas and their associated risk factors that have been earmarked by previous national health policies namely Health Vision 2000 and the Mental Health Policy.

The HIS will not concentrate solely on medical conditions which are normally associated with health; it will include information on lifestyles, such as eating habits, exercise, smoking and drinking, abilities and disabilities, quality of life, emotions and self perceived health.

More specifically the HIS Malta will focus on the following areas:

Sociodemographic characteristics
Anthropometric measurements
Self perceived health
Mental health
Chronic conditions and symptoms
Short term disability / Activity limitations
Long term disability
Tobacco use
Alcohol use
Diet
Physical activity
Knowledge/ attitudes about healthy lifestyles
Accidents
Hospitalisation
GP/ Specialist/ Dentist encounters
Consumption of medicines
Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Dental health
Health Insurance, and
Quality of Life

METHODOLOGY

The Health Interview Survey is being conducted at a national level involving a randomly selected sample of 5500 individuals aged 16 years and over currently resident in the Maltese Islands. The sample has been drawn from a population register and has been stratified by age, gender and locality. Field testing on a random sample of 300 individuals has already been carried out successfully.

Information for the survey will be collected via two questionnaires. These questionnaires, although based on those already used in several surveys performed in other European countries, have been adapted to the local situation highlighting the more important health issues in Malta. Every effort has been made to strike a balance between comprehensiveness and length of questionnaire. The first longer questionnaire is to be completed by a face to face interview and the second, shorter questionnaire, which contains more sensitive topics is to be filled in by the interviewee. Questionnaires are available in both Maltese and English for the convenience of the interviewee.

Trained interviewers will administer the questionnaires. All randomly selected interviewees will first receive a letter of introduction from the Department of Health Information. This will be followed by the interviewers phoning them to arrange a convenient appointment to visit them at their home. The interviewers will explain to the interviewee and guardian (when the interviewee is below 18 years of age) the objective of the survey and then carry out the face to face interview. The self-completed questionnaire will be delivered, completed and collected at the end of the encounter.

We assure all participants that the interviews and questionnaires will be held and kept in complete confidentiality.

To encourage the best possible co-operation from interviewees several advertisements have been being organised including billboards and advertisments published in all local Maltese and English newspapers of the 17th February 2002.. Also, each participant will be given a token gift pack as acknowledgement for their participation and they will also be eligible for participation in a lottery offering several prizes which are to be drawn at the end of the survey. These gifts have been kindly offered by our sponsors (see below).

The results of this survey will be published later this year and will describe the occurrence of disease and related risk factors within the Maltese Islands, as well as the lifestyles and attitudes of the population.

THE FIRST NATIONAL HEALTH INTERVIEW SURVEY (HIS Malta)

H.I.S. MALTA

METHODOLOGY

SPONSORS

THE FIRST NATIONAL HEALTH INTERVIEW SURVEY
(HIS Malta)