Table 1.
Characteristics of patients and carers who participated in the survey
| Patients (n=190) | Carers (n=68) | |
| Diagnosis* | ||
| COPD | 130 (69) | 32 (47) |
| Interstitial lung disease | 18 (10) | 14 (30) |
| Lung cancer | 40 (21) | 22 (33) |
| Age† | 74.9 (6.1) | 64.0 (13.5) |
| Male/female† | 124 (65)/66 (35) | 9 (14)/55 (86) |
| Ethnicity | ||
| White | 180 (95) | 61 (90) |
| Non-white | 8 (4) | 7 (10) |
| Marital status | ||
| Single | 15 (8) | 8 (12) |
| Widowed | 39 (21) | |
| Married/partnership | 118 (62) | 59 (87) |
| Divorced/separate | 18 (9) | 1 (1) |
| Financial status† | ||
| Living comfortably on present income | 77 (41) | 30 (45) |
| Coping on present income | 86 (45) | 23 (34) |
| Difficult on present income | 10 (5) | 8 (12) |
| Very difficult on present income | 2 (1) | 2 (3) |
| Do not know | 2 (1) | |
| Refusal/prefer not to say | 6 (7) | 4 (6) |
| Educational attainment* | ||
| Left school at 15 years old or under | 119 (63) | 26 (38) |
| Left school at 16–17 years old | 45 (24) | 19 (28) |
| Left school at 18–19 years old | 5 (3) | 4 (6) |
| Postsecondary/vocational qualifications | 8 (4) | 8 (12) |
| University | 12 (6) | 11 (16) |
| Religious faith (=1 if yes)† | 97 (51) | 35 (52) |
| Living alone (=1 if yes) | 57 (30) | 0 (0) |
| Study site | ||
| London | 93 (49) | 45 (66) |
| Other areas of England | 97 (51) | 23 (34) |
| Relationship to patient† | ||
| Spouse/partner | 46 (68) | |
| Son/daughter | 14 (21) | |
| Parent | 2 (3) | |
| Friend | 1 (1) | |
| Others | 2 (3) |
Mean (SD) for age; n (%) for the rest.
*Two missing in diagnosis and one in educational attainment in the patient group.
†Two missing in age, four in female, one in financial status, one in religious faith and three in relationship to the patient in the carer group.