Health and happiness in young Swiss adults

To explore whether self-reported happiness is associated with mental and physical health status among young adults.

Cross-sectional survey of 1257 randomly selected university students in Geneva, Switzerland. The questionnaire included an item that probed the feeling of happiness in the past month, the Short Form-12 health survey (from which mental and physical health scores were computed), scales to measure self-esteem, stress, and social support, reports of various life problems, and sociodemographic information.

Most participants felt happy all of the time or most of the time (63%). In multivariate analysis, feeling happy all or most of the time was strongly associated with better mental health (odds ratios for consecutive quartiles of mental health scores: 1.0 (reference), 6.8 (95% confidence interval (CI): 4.5-10.1), 19.2 (95% CI: 12.2-30.2), 39.9 (95% CI: 22.4-71.0)), but also with the feeling of getting enough love and affection (item from the social support scale, odds ratio: 1.9; 95% CI: 1.4-2.7), female sex (odds ratio: 1.5; 95% CI: 1.1-2.1), being Swiss (odds ratio: 1.8; 95% CI: 1.3-2.5), and higher self-esteem (odds ratios for consecutive quartiles ranged from 1.0 to 3.5, 95% CI: 2.1-5.8). The association between happiness and physical health was weak and statistically non-significant.

The strong association between happiness and mental health suggests that asking people if they are happy may help identify mental health care needs. Self-reported happiness may also be a useful outcome measure for evaluation of health interventions.