Your way of life affects your well-being. This includes what you eat, if you take exercise, how well you sleep and if you experience stress.

During health counselling, you get to talk to a health-care professional about your habits and your current state of well-being.
You will also receive support if you want to make changes to improve your well-being.

The purpose of health counselling is to help you take care of your health and to reduce the risk that you will fall ill. The goal is for you to be in good health for a long time. Achieving that may involve, for example, preventing illnesses such as stroke, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes as well as mental ill-health and injuries due to falls.

Health counselling takes as its starting point what is important in your particular case.

Those who will be turning 60 or 70 years receive an invitation to attend health counselling at their local health centre.
Health counselling consists of three steps.

Step 1: Filling in a questionnaire
The invitation includes a link to a questionnaire. You get to answer questions about your well-being and your way of life, for example what you eat, if you take exercise and if you have any illnesses. Your answers will help the health-care professional adjust counselling to suit your particular needs.

This is how you do it:

1. Go to 1177.se.
2. Log in using BankID or other electronic identification.
3. Select Övriga tjänster [“Other Services”].
4. Select Alla övriga tjänster [“All Other Services”].
5. Select Hälsosamtal [“Individual Health Counselling”].
6. Fill in the questionnaire and submit your answers.

Step 2: Coming to be tested
You will receive an appointment for testing at your local health centre. We will take a blood sample (to measure your blood sugar and blood fat/cholesterol). You also get to weigh yourself and measure your blood pressure, your waist and your height. You do not need to take your clothes off.

After finishing your tests, you will receive an appointment for your health-counselling session.

You need to fast before testing
Fasting means that, for 10 hours before your testing appointment, you must not eat any food, drink anything (except one small glass of water), chew gum, smoke or use snus.

Step 3: Coming for health counselling
Health counselling takes place at the local health centre and is led by a counsellor, who may be a nurse or another health-care professional. It takes about an hour and a half.

You will receive a summary of your present state of health which indicates how your habits are affecting your health and what you can do to enhance your well-being. This summary stands on three legs: your answers to the questionnaire, the results of your blood test and what you and the counsellor talked about during counselling.

You and the counsellor go through your answers together, discussing what is most important for you right now. You get to reflect on what is working well for you and on whether there is anything you would like to change. The purpose of health counselling is to help you go on doing the good things you are already doing and to give you support if there is something you want to try doing differently. What you decide together will be noted in your patient file. You will also receive a copy, in Swedish, of your joint decisions.

After health counselling, you can receive help to take the next step towards enhanced well-being. The help you get depends on what you agreed with the counsellor.

For example, you may be referred to a nurse, doctor or other health-care professional at the local health centre. You may also receive support if you want to change your habits, for example by changing what you eat or how much exercise you take, or if you want to quit smoking.

In some cases you may be referred to a municipal health centre (hälsocenter), to activities in your municipality or to an association working in the field of health and well-being.