Background: Increasing amount of evidence shows that there is a positive association between happiness, optimism and active coping with a chronic health conditions outcomes. Research shows that COPD patients are significantly less satisfied, less socially active and more disabled, and they perceived their health as poorer than patients with other chronic conditions. Several factors can affect motivation to engage in self-care, including hope, self-care ability, and improvement in health status or situation. A substantial body of evidence relating depression and distress with COPD, but we have yet to discover if happiness offers a protective factor to enhance wellbeing of these patients.
Research Questions: Is happiness related to health care utilization, survival and general well being in COPD?
Sample Characteristics, Sample Size and Design: We analyzed data from the National Emphysema Treatment Trial (NETT) where 1213 patients with COPD were assessed for happiness using the following question of “how often they felt happy? We aimed to investigate the association of happiness, defined as answering ‘all of the time’ or ‘most of the time’ to the happiness question with health care utilization(days in the hospital and ER visits), survival and general wellbeing.
Results: 1213 subjects with very severe COPD (mean fev1 25+7%) from the National Emphysema Treatment Trial cohort at baseline were part of the analysis. Average age was 69. Adjusting for confounding factors (age, Medical Research Council Dyspnea Score, gender, six-minute walk test) happiness was associated with an average of 1.5 fewer days in the hospital (p=0.0023), 0.2 fewer ER visits (p=0.0482), and about 10 points better on general health (p<0.0001). Happiness was not related to overall survival time.
Contribution: The perception of happiness is protective factor. Interventions targeting determinants of happiness, like optimism, hope, relationships and meaning and purpose may have a favorable impact on COPD patients.