Background: It is widely believed that illness, both somatic and mental, cause a transient and possibly lasting reduction in subjective wellbeing (SWB). Similarly, some studies indicate that becoming inflicted with a chronic... [ view full abstract ]
Background: It is widely believed that illness, both somatic and mental, cause a transient and possibly lasting reduction in subjective wellbeing (SWB). Similarly, some studies indicate that becoming inflicted with a chronic disease will lead to a sustained reduction in SWB. However, in arguing for a causal impact of illness on SWB, few studies have investigated to what extent confounding factors influencing both self-reported illness and SWB may account for the observed association.
Methods: Lifetime experience of illness was reported in a sample of 903 monozygotic (MZ) and 1084 dizygotic (DZ) twins in a cohort born 1945-1960. In all 41 illnesses were reported, spanning several classes, among them respiratory, circulatory, musculoskeletal, and mental. Linear mixed models predicting subjective wellbeing in pairs discordant on illness were fitted using the lmer package in R.
Results: Disregarding twin pairing, 38 (93%) of the disorders were negatively associated with SWB, and this was significant at a 0.05 level for 27 (66%) of the illnesses. Preliminary discordant MZ analyses revealed that while a number of associations were attenuated, a strong and significant negative association remained for a subset of the illnesses.
Conclusion: Discordant MZ analyses support the causal negative effect of illness on SWB for a subset of the disorders assessed. The strength of these associations, as well as common characteristics of illnesses with a causal and negative impact on SWB will be investigated and reported.
Health (e.g., BMI, Exercise) , Positive Psychology/Wellbeing
