IRISH PEOPLE are cutting back on visits to the doctor and on medicines – even prescribed doses – as a result of the recession, a new survey has shown.
Some 10 per cent of the population in a national survey said they were now more reluctant to bring a child to a doctor, with this figure rising to 13 per cent among those who are unemployed.
About 24 per cent of adults also say they are more reluctant to visit a healthcare professional in general. This figure rises to 29 per cent among those who are unemployed.
Furthermore, 17 per cent of adults say they are buying fewer over-the-counter medicines and 14 per cent have cut down on prescription medicines. Among unemployed people, these figures rise to 29 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.
The data is based on a survey by market research agency Behaviour Attitudes of more than 1,000 people aged over 16 and a secondary booster sample of 122 recently unemployed people.
The findings were revealed in the 2009 Pfizer health index published yesterday.
The report shows the percentages of people visiting their GP when they feel unwell has fallen from 73 per cent last year to 63 per cent this year.
The report’s authors suggest this may be because “the population may be more inclined to avoid financial expense in the current environment”.
A majority of people, not just those who have lost their jobs, have been personally affected by the recession, the survey found. Only 15 per cent of all adults said it had not affected them at all.
“Roughly half of the adult population claim that they are finding it hard to make ends meet, and similar numbers are shopping in cheaper retail outlets and socialising much less,” the report says.
About 16 per cent of those surveyed said their salary had been reduced, and 13 per cent said their hours of work were cut. Another 7 per cent said they had lost their jobs.
One-fifth of those surveyed said they were having problems with mortgage or loan repayments.
Rates of depression were four times higher at 8 per cent among those recently unemployed.
“There is no evidence of a class difference in terms of the impact of the recession, although farmers seem to be considerably less significantly impacted than those from either middle- or working-class backgrounds,” the survey found.
Most adults surveyed believed the recession would last more than two years.
Meanwhile, about a third of adults surveyed said they were eating more healthily as a result of the recession. They were consuming less processed food and eating more fruit and vegetables.
But among those recently unemployed this trend was less apparent.
If there is a silver lining in the findings, the report adds, it is in the fact that three in 10 adults surveyed said they felt the recession may make people kinder and more considerate in the long run.
Clinical psychologist David Coleman said while the research shows the recession may be having a negative effect on some people, it may present an opportunity for people to assess their lives and their priorities.