The Survey of Disability in Great Britain

The Survey of Disability in Great Britain was carried out between 1985 and 1988 was to provide information to allow the planning of welfare benefits and services provision.

The survey used thirteen different types of disability based on those identified in the ICIDH and gave estimates of the numbers of adults with each type. It showed that musculo-skeletal complaints, most notably arthritis, were the most commonly cited causes of disability among adults living in private households. Ear complaints, eye complaints and diseases of the circulatory system were also common. For those living in communal establishments, mental complaints, particularly senile dementia, were mentioned most often, followed by musculo-skeletal (arthritis) and nervous system (strokes) conditions.

The majority of adults, particularly the more severely disabled and almost all of those living in communal establishments, had more than one type of disability. The most common type of disabilities reported were associated with locomotion, followed by hearing and personal care.

An innovative feature of the survey was the construction of an overall measure of severity of disability that can be used to classify people with different weighted combinations of disability. The criterion of overall severity was based on a consensus of assessments of people acting as 'judges', including doctors, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, UK Department of Health staff and representatives of disabled people. In essence, the severity of disability in the thirteen different areas of disability is first established, and then the three highest of the thirteen separate scores are combined to give an overall score, from which people are allocated to one of ten overall severity categories.

This weighted sum is then translated into an overall severity category using the mapping shown in the table below.

• Home
• Introduction
• Data
• Definitions
• Approaches
• Design Process
• Assessment
• Case studies