Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine if hostility is associated with physical and mental health-related quality of life (QoL) in US. Hispanics/Latinos after accounting for depression and anxiety.
Methods: Analyses included 5313 adults (62% women, 18-75 years) who completed the ancillary sociocultural assessment of the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos. Participants completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, Spielberger Trait Anxiety Scale, Spielberger Trait Anger Scale, Cook-Medley Hostility cynicism subscale and Short Form Health Survey. In a structural regression model, associations of hostility with mental and physical QoL were examined.
Results: In a model adjusting for age, sex, disease burden, income, education and years in the US., hostility was related to worse mental QoL, and was marginally associated with worse physical QoL. However, when adjusting for the influence of depression and anxiety, greater hostility was associated with better mental QoL, and was not associated with physical QoL.
Conclusions: Results indicate observed associations between hostility and QoL are confounded by symptoms of anxiety and depression, and suggest hostility is independently associated with better mental QoL in this population. Findings also highlight the importance of differentiating shared and unique associations of specific emotions with health outcomes.
Keywords: anger; hispanic/Latino; hostility; negative affect; quality of life.