Consultation Access and Being Consulted: Associations with Happiness Among Older Adults in Japan

Older adults may have both someone to consult and opportunities to be consulted by family or friends. This cross-sectional secondary analysis examined their mutually adjusted associations with happiness and self-rated health using a nationwide survey of 2084 Japanese adults aged 60–104 years. Happiness on a 0–10 scale was the primary outcome. Linear and logistic regression models adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic, family, behavioral and functional covariates, using study-specific broader and basic functional scores. Complete-case samples were 1806 and 1817 for happiness and 1802 and 1813 for self-rated health. Mean age was 73.0 years, and 52.2% were women. Having someone to consult was associated with higher happiness in both models (unstandardized B = 1.14 and 1.15). Being consulted by family or friends was also associated with higher happiness (B = 0.49, 95% CI 0.22–0.76; B = 0.58, 95% CI 0.33–0.84), as was social contribution activity. Being consulted was associated with good self-rated health in the basic-function model (OR = 1.37, 95% CI 1.01–1.86), but not clearly in the broader-function model. Five-category ordinal analyses showed a similar pattern. These findings support examining consultation access and being consulted as distinct indicators of older adults’ social relationships. They do not establish causal effects or reciprocity between the same people.