Optimists experience better health and quality of life - Editorial

AORN Journal, Dec, 2002

A positive outlook on life can result in a higher level of mental and physical functioning, according to an Aug 12, 2002, news release from the Mayo Clinic. In addition, optimists may have improved quality of life in their later years compared to pessimists.

Researchers studied data from a group of 447 patients who completed the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) between 1962 and 1965. The MMPI is an assessment tool that helps researchers classify participants' personality traits. Seventy-four of the study participants were classified as pessimistic, 101 as optimistic, and 272 as a mixture of the two.

Researchers then reviewed follow-up health surveys completed by the same participants in the 1990s. Those participants classified as pessimistic reported poorer physical and mental health than their optimistic counterparts.

Pessimists scored lower than optimists on quality of life assessments and lower than the national average on five of the eight scales measured (ie, physical functioning, physical role limitations, bodily pain, general health perception, vitality, social functioning, emotional role limitations, mental health). This research provides documentation for the widely held belief that attitude can affect well being. These results come two years after another Mayo Clinic study found that optimists live longer than pessimists.

Mayo Clinic Study Finds Optimists Report a Higher Quality of Life than Pessimists (news release, Rochester, Minn: Mayo Clinic, Aug 12, 2002) hltp://www.mayoclinic .org/news2002-rst/1406.html (accessed 16 Aug 2002).