Are rural adults happy? An observational study of happiness and its determinants

Abstract

Background: Happiness has been defined as the degree to which an individual judges the overall quality of his or her life as favourable. The happiness of a society, depends on its individual members. So, the study was designed to assess happiness among rural adults and to identify various socio- demographic, family and health determinants affecting happiness.Methods: It was a cross sectional study conducted in the field practice area of Department of Community Medicine, KMC Manipal. The study included 403 permanent residents of field practice area, aged ≥20 years, of both gender and willing to participate in the study. Information pertaining to socio-demographic characteristics, details pertaining to co-morbidities, habits and family particulars were collected by personal interviews using a pre-designed questionnaire. Happiness was assessed using the Oxford happiness questionnaire.Results: A total of 403 subjects participated in the study and among them 82% of the respondents were happy and 17.6% were unhappy, as per the Oxford happiness questionnaire. Over half of the participants belonged to 30-60 years and two-thirds were females (66.5%). There was no gender difference in reported happiness. Almost all the people who had cordial relationship with family members (99.1%) and neighbourhood (97.9%), owning a house (94%) and being without co-morbidities (56%) were happy. Past hospitalization, concerns about child marriage and employment made people less happy.Conclusions: Good relationship with family members and neighbourhood, absence of co-morbidities was positive determinants of happiness, while hospitalization, concerns about employment and marriage of their children contributed to unhappiness.