Notes
Respondents were asked to indicate whether or not the person concerned had a serious visual, hearing, physical or mental disability. The identification of disability was dependent on the respondent’s interpretation of what constituted a serious sight, hearing, physical or mental disability. The response categories gave prompts for sight and physical disabilities and were as follows:
• Sight (serious eye defects)
• Hearing/speech
• Physical disability (e.g. paralysis)
• Mental disability
The respondent or interviewer was required to circle all applicable disabilities for the person concerned. Interviewer’s instructions offered some assistance with the definition of serious disability: ‘The question is
subjective. Allow the respondent to decide on what he or she feels is a serious disability. As a guide, however, you can indicate that a serious disability is one which prevents the person from performing normal activities of daily living, for example, getting in or out of bed, dressing, washing or even working, without assistance or equipment.’
The data from this question should only be considered a rough indication of the incidence of disabilities in the population. Other sources of data, which incorporate rigorous definitions of what constitutes a serious disability, should be used as a supplement to this information.
A person may have more than one disability. The variable ‘Disability status’ incorporates the information from the first question on whether a person has a disability as well as the type of disability if a person had only one type. For more detailed information on the number (if more than one) and combinations of disabilities people may have, it is necessary to look at the data for the separate variables on sight, hearing, physical and mental disabilities.
