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Over-indebtedness and health in Switzerland: A cross-sectional study comparing over-indebted individuals and the general population
BACKGROUND: Previous international studies have shown that over-indebtedness is associated with poor health. However, in Switzerland research addressing over-indebtedness is widely lacking, strongly needed and particularly important because it is evidently a rising but still commonly tabooed, social...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9553041/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36219609 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275441 |
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author | Hämmig, Oliver Herzig, Joanna |
author_facet | Hämmig, Oliver Herzig, Joanna |
author_sort | Hämmig, Oliver |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Previous international studies have shown that over-indebtedness is associated with poor health. However, in Switzerland research addressing over-indebtedness is widely lacking, strongly needed and particularly important because it is evidently a rising but still commonly tabooed, socially “undesired” and highly stigmatized phenomenon that is rarely discussed and largely ignored and unexplored. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among over-indebted adults seeking advice from one of the four official debt advisory centers in the Canton of Zurich. The survey finally included 219 respondents participating voluntarily and anonymously. This sample was then linked with a comparable subsample of the nationally representative Swiss Health Survey of 2017, namely 1,997 respondents of the same age from the Canton of Zurich. For reasons of comparability identical health questions and measures were taken from the Swiss Health Survey and used in the over-indebtedness survey. The pooled or combined dataset covered a total of 2,216 adult individuals. RESULTS: Remarkably high prevalence rates and relative risks of poor self-rated health, severe musculoskeletal and sleep disorders and moderate to severe depression were observed among over-indebted individuals compared to the general population. More than 50% of the over-indebted individuals had poor general health or moderate to severe depression compared to the general population with 14% and 7%, respectively. And far above one third of the over-indebted but ‘only’ between 6% and 8% of the general population showed severe musculoskeletal disorders and sleep disorders. Even after adjustment for various control variables and covariates, over-indebtedness increased the odds ratios for poor health outcomes consistently and dramatically, i.e. by a factor of 8 and more (aOR = 8.5–11.6). CONCLUSIONS: Over-indebtedness in Switzerland has particularly negative effects on various aspects of the health of the persons concerned, irrespective of their demographic characteristics and their social and employment status. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9553041 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-95530412022-10-12 Over-indebtedness and health in Switzerland: A cross-sectional study comparing over-indebted individuals and the general population Hämmig, Oliver Herzig, Joanna PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Previous international studies have shown that over-indebtedness is associated with poor health. However, in Switzerland research addressing over-indebtedness is widely lacking, strongly needed and particularly important because it is evidently a rising but still commonly tabooed, socially “undesired” and highly stigmatized phenomenon that is rarely discussed and largely ignored and unexplored. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among over-indebted adults seeking advice from one of the four official debt advisory centers in the Canton of Zurich. The survey finally included 219 respondents participating voluntarily and anonymously. This sample was then linked with a comparable subsample of the nationally representative Swiss Health Survey of 2017, namely 1,997 respondents of the same age from the Canton of Zurich. For reasons of comparability identical health questions and measures were taken from the Swiss Health Survey and used in the over-indebtedness survey. The pooled or combined dataset covered a total of 2,216 adult individuals. RESULTS: Remarkably high prevalence rates and relative risks of poor self-rated health, severe musculoskeletal and sleep disorders and moderate to severe depression were observed among over-indebted individuals compared to the general population. More than 50% of the over-indebted individuals had poor general health or moderate to severe depression compared to the general population with 14% and 7%, respectively. And far above one third of the over-indebted but ‘only’ between 6% and 8% of the general population showed severe musculoskeletal disorders and sleep disorders. Even after adjustment for various control variables and covariates, over-indebtedness increased the odds ratios for poor health outcomes consistently and dramatically, i.e. by a factor of 8 and more (aOR = 8.5–11.6). CONCLUSIONS: Over-indebtedness in Switzerland has particularly negative effects on various aspects of the health of the persons concerned, irrespective of their demographic characteristics and their social and employment status. Public Library of Science 2022-10-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9553041/ /pubmed/36219609 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275441 Text en © 2022 Hämmig, Herzig https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Hämmig, Oliver Herzig, Joanna Over-indebtedness and health in Switzerland: A cross-sectional study comparing over-indebted individuals and the general population |
title | Over-indebtedness and health in Switzerland: A cross-sectional study comparing over-indebted individuals and the general population |
title_full | Over-indebtedness and health in Switzerland: A cross-sectional study comparing over-indebted individuals and the general population |
title_fullStr | Over-indebtedness and health in Switzerland: A cross-sectional study comparing over-indebted individuals and the general population |
title_full_unstemmed | Over-indebtedness and health in Switzerland: A cross-sectional study comparing over-indebted individuals and the general population |
title_short | Over-indebtedness and health in Switzerland: A cross-sectional study comparing over-indebted individuals and the general population |
title_sort | over-indebtedness and health in switzerland: a cross-sectional study comparing over-indebted individuals and the general population |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9553041/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36219609 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275441 |
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