Meaningfulness and mortality: exploring the sense of coherence in Eastern Finnish men

The sense of coherence scale has been shown to have an epidemiological relationship with mortality. This study aimed to investigate how the three components of sense of coherence (meaningfulness, comprehensibility and manageability) and the individual items of these components relate to mortality.

Eastern Finnish men (n=2315) aged 42-60 years at baseline in the 1980s completed a 12-item sense of coherence scale and were followed for 25 years, on average, until death or until the end of 2019. Hazard ratios for mortality were calculated using two models: one adjusted for age and the second for an additional 12 mortality risk factors.

Of the three sense of coherence components, only meaningfulness was associated with all-cause mortality, and in the fully adjusted model, those in the weakest tertile had a 1.14 (95% confidence interval 1.01-1.29, P=0.042) times higher hazard ratio for mortality than those in the strongest tertile. Of the individual sense of coherence items, only the first question, 'How often do you have the feeling that you really don't care about what is going on around you?', was associated with all-cause mortality, and in the fully adjusted Cox model, the hazard ratio of weak versus strong was 1.18 (95% confidence interval 1.03-1.36, P=0.020).

The sense of coherence component related to meaningfulness, including its first item, 'Caring about what goes on around you', plays a significant role in the association with mortality among middle-aged men in Eastern Finland. This item should be considered a noteworthy patient-reported variable when predicting mortality in public health settings.