Life satisfaction components and all-cause and cause-specific mortality: A large prospective cohort study

Abstract

Background: Which life satisfaction components could be a target of positive psychological interventions for longevity is largely unknown. We aimed to investigate association of the composite measure of life satisfaction and its individual components with mortality.

Methods: This cohort study included UK Biobank participants who responded to questions concerning five components of life satisfaction at baseline. We generated a composite score representing overall life satisfaction, ranging from 0 (lowest) to 5 (highest). The outcomes were all-cause and cause-specific mortality. We used multivariable Cox regression to estimate hazard ratios (HR) for the associations of interest.

Results: Among 165,842 eligible participants, 12,261 all-cause deaths were observed over a median of 12.9-year follow-up. Overall life satisfaction was inversely associated with all-cause mortality (adjusted HR 0.94 [95% CI: 0.93-0.95] per 1 score increment). Health satisfaction showed the strongest association with all-cause mortality, with a fully adjusted HR of 0.52 (95% CI: 0.49-0.55) for high/extreme satisfaction and 0.63 (95% CI: 0.59-0.66) for moderate satisfaction, compared with unsatisfaction (P-trend<0.001), independent of other satisfaction components, regardless of physical health and sociodemographics. The association for family, friendship, work and financial satisfaction was attenuated when adjusted for other life satisfaction components. Similar findings were observed for cause-specific mortality.

Limitations: Observational study with single baseline measurement of life satisfaction precludes the ability to establish causal relationship.

Conclusions: Higher overall life satisfaction was associated with lower mortality. As the major contributor to lower mortality regardless of physical health and sociodemographics, health satisfaction could be an important target of positive psychological interventions for longevity.

Keywords: Health satisfaction; Life satisfaction; Longevity; Mortality; Subjective well-being.