Which long-term illnesses do patients find most limiting? A census-based cross-sectional study of 340,000 people

OBJECTIVES: To investigate associations between a widely used measure of self-assessed health (limiting long-term illness, LLTI) and 11 long-term health conditions. METHODS: Information on LLTI and health conditions was obtained from 2011 Census returns for a 28% representative sample of the Northern Ireland population (n = 342,868). Logistic regression was used to predict LLTI by sex and age group for each condition found in isolation, adjusting for marital status, social class, household car access, housing tenure, and educational attainment. The relationship between limitation and multimorbidity was also assessed. RESULTS: Prevalence of LLTI varied considerably among conditions when found in isolation; those with mobility problems were over 50 times more likely to report limitation than those with hearing loss. Women were less likely to report limitation than men [OR = 0.93 (0.90, 0.96)], but the pattern of associations with health conditions was similar for both sexes. Prevalence of LLTI increased with age and number of health conditions. CONCLUSIONS: LLTI was most closely associated with mobility problems. Limitation increased slightly with age, but patterns of LLTI across conditions were not sex dependent. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00038-016-0929-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.