Health and lifestyles of family planning attenders in Glasgow – why a holistic approach is necessary

J. Cumming, A. Bigrigg

The Sandyford Initiative, Glasgow, UK

Background: It is well recognised that poverty adversely affects health and wellbeing. Glasgow City contains 75% of the most deprived postcode sectors in Scotland and has one of the poorest health records in Western Europe. 67% of the community based family planning clinics in Glasgow are based in these areas of severe deprivation. It is therefore assumed that clients attending these clinics will have greater health and social needs than those attending clinics in less deprived areas.

Aims: To ascertain information on the health, social circumstances and lifestyles of family planning attenders in Glasgow in order to identify health and social needs with a view to improving service provision and providing a social model of health care to all clients.

Method: A self-administered questionnaire was offered to all clients attending the community based clinics and a smaller number attending the central city based clinic over a one-week period in 2002.

Results: Questionnaires were completed by 624 clients of whom 580 attended the community clinics (response rate 89%). The majority of clients were female, Caucasian, under the age of 35 (73%) and unmarried (68%). The majority had children (52%) and 19% lived alone with their children. Several areas of health need were identified: Smoking: 43% of clients smoke, domestic abuse: 16% of clients had experienced domestic abuse and 61% of those had never sought help, debt: 27% of all clients had concerns regarding debt, mental health: 33% of clients had attended their GP with anxiety or depression and 9% were currently taking antidepressants and weight: 51% were unhappy with their weight with 88% of these clients considering themselves overweight. Some clinics demonstrated considerably higher prevalences of smoking, domestic abuse and anxiety/depression than the average.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates that there are clearly unmet health and social needs among women attending family planning clinics in Glasgow. We must attempt to address these issues as they will impact on clients’ sense of wellbeing and ultimately their sexual health. This has implications for the appropriate targeting of resources and the appropriate training of staff to enable them to confidently address these issues.