English Abstract The differences between healthy persons and chronically
ill patients (chronic non-specific lung disease, reumatic disease, diabetes
mellitus), with respect to situation of life and social support were studied
in a cross-sectional study. By secondary analysis of the Life- situation
Survey 1986, Cultural Changes in the Netherlands 1988 and 1989 (total: 8081
respondents) the subjects were studied. Seven groups of indicators of life
situation and social support were selected. Two samples - one consisting of
people with only one of the above mentioned chronic diseases and one
consisting of people without health complaints - were individually matched.
The relevant characteristics in the matching procedure were: gender, age,
socio-economic status (education), whether or not living alone, the
relations inside the household and the degree of urbanization. Chronically
ill patients contrast in a negative sense with healthy persons on some
aspects of their situation of life: the perception of the health-status,
(dis)satisfaction, negative life events, material resources (car),
restrictions in their labour and leisure activities. Not completely clear
are the results with regard to social support. The pairs of chronically ill
and healthy people do not differ much ; except that ill persons feel
socially isolated in the neighbourhood and they are less satisfied with
their marriage and family than healthy persons. The reason for these
ambiguous results may be the limited operationalisation of the concept of
social support in this study.