Follow-up study of participants in an extensive health examination programme at a Swedish industry

Effects of a health examination programme on quality of life and subjective well-being

The effects on quality of life and psychological well-being of a health examination programme in a branch of Swedish industry were studied by means of questionnaires in 124 white-collar workers. They were asked to answer two questionnaires, one before and the other one month after the examination (the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) and the Psychological General Well-being Schedule (PGWB)). Both are well-known and well-documented standard questionnaires used for estimating quality of life and degree of subjective well-being. The answers were compared with those of a control group comprising other white-collar workers in the same industry, of the same sex and age but who did not participate in the health examination and who were asked to complete the same questionnaires twice. The group that had participated in the health examination did not differ generally from the control group with respect to intra-individual differences as studied in the questionnaires on the two occasions. This indicates that no deterioration of quality of life or of psychological well-being was experienced by the participants in the health examination.

Someone who cares--patients' experiences concerning health examinations

The aim of this inquiry was to gain an understanding of laymen's experiences and opinions about general health check-ups. Medical experts often draw attention to unwanted effects, especially the risk of creating worry and of recommending and even giving unnecessary medical treatment. By using a qualitative research method with unstructured interviews we wanted to explore the participants' conceptions of health, their expectations before and their perceived benefits after health checks and whether the check-up gave rise to negative feelings. The participants held broad views on health and, possibly as a consequence, also great expectations of health check-ups. Consequences of the check-ups were that examinees felt encouraged to change their life style, had learnt to handle risk factors for disease, and after some time, reported feeling better. The individual attention and care, which in general did not differ from other caring situations described in the literature, was highlighted as an important factor for a positive result. Worries afterwards either did not exist or could be rationalized by knowing the causes of abnormalities and receiving guidance from the medical staff.