Associations of vacation time with lifestyle, long-term mortality and health-related quality of life in old age: The Helsinki Businessmen Study

作者：Strandberg T E; von Bonsdorff M; Strandberg A; Pitkala K; Raikkonen K

来源：European Geriatric Medicine, 2017, 8(3): 260-264.

DOI：10.1016/j.eurger.2017.03.003

• Holidays
• Lifestyle
• Mortality
• Quality of life
• Self-rated health
• Vacation

Introduction: There are few longitudinal studies of relationships between vacation and later health outcomes. We studied these during a 26-year follow-up of the Helsinki Businessmen Study.
Methods: In 1974, at mean age of 47 years, 2741 members of a cohort of executives and businessmen born 1919-1934 were clinically examined and reported their annual vacation time (dichotomized >21 [n = 2001]vs. <= 21 days [n = 740]), self-rated health (SRH) and perceived physical fitness using a five-step scale. In old age in 2000 (mean age 73 years), the survivors filled in the RAND-36/SF-36 health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaire. Mortality between 1974 and 2000 was retrieved from national registers.
Results: At baseline, shorter vacation was associated with longer work time, higher BMI, more coffee consumption and worse SRH. During the 26-year follow-up, 778 men out of 2741 (28.4%) had died. Shorter annual vacation was associated with higher mortality with curves starting to diverge after 18 years of follow-up, (fully adjusted hazard ratio 1.29, 95% confidence interval 1.08-1.55, P = 0.005). In old age, shorter vacation in midlife was tentatively associated with worse general health.
Conclusions: Shorter vacation time in midlife was associated with characteristics related to lifestyle and with worse perceived health status, and predicted mortality up to old age in men.

• 出版日期2017-7