The health and well-being of people with a previous diagnosis of cancer: a record-linkage study in Scotland

Routinely collected health care data (the Scottish Cancer Registry) were record-linked to representative survey data on health and health behaviours (the Government-funded Scottish Health Survey) to compare the health and well-being of cancer survivors in Scotland with people who had never had cancer; a methodological approach which has been under-utilised. After adjusting for age, sex and occupational classification, people with a previous diagnosis of cancer (even > 6 years previously) (n = 507) were more likely to have poorer self-assessed health, reduced activity and psychological morbidity than people who had never had cancer (n = 25,631).