Table 1

Distribution of the sample according to the main variables for respondents and non-respondents

Categories of variables	Proportion of respondents (n=589)	Proportion of non-respondents (n=67)	χ² test p value
Sex			0.315
Male	28.2	22.4
Female	71.8	77.6
Age group (y)			0.002
14–30	19.0	9.0
31–45	25.8	22.4
46–60	21.4	19.4
61–75	24.8	25.4
>75	9.0	23.9
Marital status			0.009
Unamrried/married	82.0	68.7
Widowed/divorced/separated	18.0	31.3
Level of education			0.001
Primary-secondary	59.9	38.8
No schooling	40.1	61.2
Employment status			0.002
Working	21.7	7.5
Unemployed	7.6	3.0
Retired	27.2	34.3
Works at home	37.9	55.2
Other	5.6	0.0
Number of persons in household			0.057
1–2	30.4	41.8
>2	69.6	58.2
Travelling time to health centre			0.212
<10 min	82.3	76.1
>10 min	17.7	23.9
Satisfaction with physician			0.425
Never-sometimes	23.9	28.4
Almost always/always	76.1	71.6
Seen by private physician			0.853
No	82.7	83.6
Yes	17.3	16.4
Seen by faith healer			0.665
No	95.9	97.0
Yes	4.1	3.0
Seen by alternative medicine practitioner			0.820
No	96.1	95.5
Yes	3.9	4.5
Level of use of health care services			0.034
Normal user	65.4	52.2
High user	34.6	47.8
Number of chronic illnesses			0.005
0–10	87.3	74.6
>10	12.7	25.4
Level of self perceived health			0.022
Excellent	7.3	1.5
Acceptable	35.8	25.4
Neither good nor bad	17.0	13.4
Fair	30.2	47.8
Poor	9.7	11.9
Family APGAR			0.927
Functional	84.0	83.6
Dysfunctional	16.0	16.4
Score on Duke scale (dichotomised)			0.817
Normal social support	88.6	89.6
Low social support	11.4	10.4
GHQ score (dichotomised)			0.001
Probably healthy	52.0	31.3
Probably ill	48.0	68.7
Mean number of recorded visits	5.43	7.59