General Health
Construct definition
We harmonized self-report instruments for respondents' general health. These instruments capture the subjective perceptions of respondents regarding their health. The wording was very general and did not emphasize specific aspects of health.
Overview of all measurement instruments
General health is used by seven of the surveys included in QuestionLink. In total we harmonized seven German measurement instruments. Please note that some instruments are used by several surveys and some surveys use several different measurement instruments.
Measurement instruments by survey and year
Naming scheme for measurement instruments
Measurement instruments are named by the following scheme:
- The survey in QuestionLink which first used the measurement instrument.
- If there are several instruments named after the same survey, they are distinguished by another letter (A, B, C ...).
- [x]pt for the number of response options (i.e., scale points).
The measurement instrument ALLBUS A 5pt for example was first used in the ALLBUS survey. Of both surveys first used in the ALLBUS, it was used in the most number of years (thus "A"). Lastly, it has five response options / scale points (thus "5pt").
The measurement instrument ESS 4pt, in contrast is the only instrument first used in the ESS. Thus it has no additional letter.
List of measurement instruments
Here are the seven measurement instruments for political interest, which were harmonized using the QuestionLink Engine.
We provide an HTML document for each measuring instrument, which you can use as a reference instrument. The HTML document contains comprehensive information and recoding instructions,with which all other instruments can be compared with the selected reference instrument.
SOEP 5pt
SOEP (27) |
„How would you describe your current health?“ Very good • Good • Satisfactory • Poor • Bad |
| ➔ use as reference instrument |
ESS 5pt
ESS (9) — EVS (2) |
"How is your health in general? Would you say it is…" Very good • Good • Fair • Bad • Very bad |
| ➔ use as reference instrument |
GEDA 5pt
| GEDA (9) — GESIS Panel (1) |
„How is your state of health in general?“ Very good • Good • Average • Poor • Very Poor |
| ➔ use as reference instrument |
NEPS 5pt
NEPS (10) |
„How would you generally describe your state of health?“ Very good • Good • Average • Poor • Very Poor |
| ➔ use as reference instrument |
ALLBUS A 5pt
ALLBUS (8) — GESIS Panel (1) |
"How would you describe your health in general?" Very good • Good • Satisfactory • Not that good • Bad |
| ➔ use as reference instrument |
ISSP 5pt
| ISSP (6) |
„In general, would you say your health is…“ Excellent • Very good • Good • Fair • Poor |
| ➔ use as reference instrument |
ALLBUS B 6pt
ALLBUS (1) |
„How would you describe your health in general?“ Excellent • Very good • Good • Satisfactory • Not that good • Bad |
| ➔ use as reference instrument |
Recoding document revisions
We are steadily improving QuestionLink. This means that we will upload revised versions of the recoding documents from time to time. By clicking "use as reference instrument", you always download the most recent version. Below you find the link with which you can view and download all past document versions. If you have previously downloaded a document, you can match the versions via the date displayed top and right in your recoding document. Revisions are limited to visual and language aspects. When we update the recoding tables themselves, we will report that specifically.
