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Self-rated health, or self-assessed health, is based on asking individuals to evaluate their general health status on a four- or five-point scale, with response options ranging from ‘very good’ to ‘very poor’. This simple question has been one of the most frequently used health indicators for decades. In nursing research, the voices, interpretations and understanding of humans, as well as their ability to shape their experiences, are studied through the collection and analysis of primarily qualitative materials that are subjective and narrative in nature. However, knowledge about subjective experiences of health and illness, situated and filtered through the life-world of the individual, can also be sought using other approaches. The aim of this chapter is twofold. Firstly, it aims to outline perspectives on how epidemiology and population-based studies of self-rated health as an indicator of subjective experiences can generate new evidence to solve nursing problems and expand nursing knowledge. Secondly, based on the hypothesis that there is an association between good self-rated health and a person’s capability to master the gains and losses of late life, the chapter also aims to describe how personal capability can be operationalised as self-rated health, given that this seemingly simple question delegates to the individual the task of synthesising, in a single evaluation, the many dimensions that make up the complex concept of health and wellbeing in old age. Although a person’s capabilities are dependent on a large variety of factors, at the individual level, symptom experience, chronic illnesses and functional disability are paramount. Therefore, in this chapter, the focus will be on self-rated health as an indicator of personal capability in the fourth age – the period of late life characterised by illness, frailty, impairment and dependence on others. To study self-rated health during this period of life is especially interesting in that the discrepancy between subjective and objective health seems to increase with age, and older olds tend to rate their health as better than younger olds given the same level of disease and functioning.

Good Self-Rated Health as an Indicator of Personal Capability in Old Age