Type of long-term condition or client group
The database provides a drop-down list of conditions and client-groups in order for searches to be refined.
In providing this list, we have defined long-term conditions as follows:
Long-term conditions are chronic conditions that require ongoing management over a period of years or decades. This includes a range of health conditions such as non-communicable diseases (such as cancer and heart disease); some communicable diseases (such as HIV/Aids) and mental health disorders (from depression through to more acute conditions such as schizophrenia) as well as ongoing physiological impairments (such as blindness, joint disorders and acute back pain).
This database also includes evidence on two ‘client groups’ – the frail elderly, and children and adolescents – as well as those with learning disabilities. Obesity is also included as a special category. Whilst none of these can be strictly regarded as long term conditions they are included to ensure the relevance of the database to both health and social care users.
Where a specific condition is being examined for a specific client group (eg, diabetes in children; dementia in frail elderly) the evidence will have been placed in the condition-specific category (ie, diabetes and dementia respectively).
Where the evidence examines more than one specific condition and/or examines patients with co-morbidity, the reference is placed under the ‘various or multiple long-term conditions’ category.
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