Housing and Support Program (HASP): Final Evaluation Report

6.7 Physical and mental health
Links between mental illness and premature death
have brought the physical health of individuals with
mental health conditions into focus in recent times.
We invited clients to provide a rating of their physical
health. While 35% of clients rated their physical health
as very good/excellent, 25% rated their physical
health as being poor/fair (see graph below). Almost
half of the clients (49.3%) indicated that they had a
physical health problem and 33% claimed to be taking
medications for physical health problems.
Fig. 6.4 Rating of physical and mental health
Percent
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Poor
Legend Physical
health
Fair
Good
Mental
health
Very
good
Excellent
Three-quarters of the clients (n=60) smoked cigarettes
with a daily intake of between fi ve and 50 cigarettes
(average daily use was 20.5 cigarettes, sd= 8.2). In the
month prior to interview, 41 clients (53.9%) had drunk
alcohol, with two clients claiming to have had alcohol
on every day in the past month. One-third of those who
had alcohol had only two drinks on the days that they
consumed alcohol. Four of the clients claimed to have
had cannabis in the month prior to interview.
6.8 Overall quality of life
An overall rating of quality of life was obtained by
asking clients to rate their quality of life on a 10-point
scale where ‘1’ was the worst quality of life possible
and ‘10’ was the best quality of life possible. HASP
clients provided a mean rating of 6.87 out of a possible
total score of 10.
Fig. 6.5 Rating of overall quality of life
Percent
25
20
15
10
5
0
One
Two Three Four
Five
HASP
Six
Seven Eight
Nine
Ten
Housing and Support Program (HASP)
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