The effect of personality type on denture satisfaction

PURPOSE

The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between personality type and denture satisfaction of totally and partially edentulous patients.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Two hundred thirty-nine patients (107 women and 132 men) aged 31 to 78 years (mean, 51.87) using removable dentures (165 maxillary and mandibular partial, 51 maxillary and mandibular complete, and 23 maxillary complete and mandibular partial) were asked to fill out a questionnaire on their satisfaction with their dentures with regard to esthetics, speaking ability, and masticatory function. Personality types were evaluated using both the responses to this questionnaire and the Type A Behavior Pattern Test. Chi-square test and logistic regression analysis were used to compare the denture satisfaction scores of the groups (Type A, Type B, and Type AB). The level of statistical significance was set at P = .05.

RESULTS

Denture satisfaction of the patients with regard to esthetics, speaking ability, and masticatory function was affected by personality type. Statistically significant differences were found between Type A and types B and AB, as well as between types B and AB.

CONCLUSION

The personality type of the patients had an effect on their satisfaction with dentures. The lowest denture satisfaction values were observed in the Type A patients.

Premorbid personality characteristics of patients with ALS

Experienced neurologists caring for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have commented that these patients commonly exhibit similar personality features. Previous research studies on the premorbid personality characteristics of ALS patients have however not clearly substantiated this observation. In the present study, caregivers of newly diagnosed ALS patients provided ratings of patients' premorbid personality traits, and these ratings were compared with those of caregivers of patients newly diagnosed with other chronic, progressive diseases. Results indicated that ALS patients were rated as significantly lower than the other medical patients in the Openness trait on the NEO-Personality Inventory. This finding is discussed in relation to past research findings, prevailing clinical characterizations of ALS patients, and current research on cognitive and behavioral changes in ALS.

Impaired health status in Type D patients following PCI in the drug-eluting stent era

BACKGROUND

Drug-eluting stenting reduces restenosis post-percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), but subgroups of patients may not benefit optimally from this procedure. We examined the impact of Type D personality on health status over time and the clinical relevance of Type D as a predictor of impaired health status at 12 months in unselected post-PCI patients.

METHODS

Consecutive patients (n=692) participating in the Rapamycin-Eluting Stent Evaluated At Rotterdam Cardiology Hospital (RESEARCH) registry completed the Type D Scale at 6 months and the Short Form Health Survey 36 (SF-36) at 6 and 12 months post-PCI.

RESULTS

Although there was a significant improvement in health status over time (p<0.001), Type D patients reported a substantially lower score on all health status domains of the SF-36 compared with non-Type D patients (p<0.001). Type D personality was an independent predictor of impaired health status on all SF-36 sub domains at 12 months except for physical functioning, adjusting for baseline demographic and clinical variables and health status at 6 months. In these adjusted analyses, Type D personality increased the likelihood of impaired health status at 12 months post-PCI from 60% (OR: 1.60; 95% CI: 1.04-2.46) to almost 300% (OR: 3.99; 95% CI: 2.52-6.32), varying among the parameters analyzed.

CONCLUSIONS

Type D personality was associated with impaired health status in post-PCI patients treated in the drug-eluting stent era. The role of personality factors as determinants of clinical outcome and health status should not be overlooked as these factors may have much explanatory power.

The induction of anomalous experiences in a mirror-gazing facility: suggestion, cognitive perceptual personality traits and phenomenological state effects

Previous research suggests that mirror-gazing is efficacious for the facilitation of anomalous experiences. The present experiment tested the hypothesis that the incidence of such experiences is a function of the demand characteristics of the procedure. Participants were randomly allocated to one of two conditions and completed a battery of trait and state measures. Individuals who were given suggestions for anomalous experiences, relative to those who were not, reported a greater number of visual, and a suggestively greater number of vocal, hallucinations. The experience of a descriptively dissociative phenomenological state was the strongest predictor of the reporting of anomalous experiences, but only correlated with the experience of anomalous perceptions in the suggestion condition. Experients of visual apparitions were found to significantly differ from nonexperients in their preference for a visual cognitive style independently of condition.

Need for closure, jumping to conclusions, and decisiveness in delusion-prone individuals

Need for closure refers to a motivated need for certainty. Jumping-to-conclusions bias refers to the gathering of minimal data when making overconfident probabilistic judgments. Both constructs have been associated independently with delusion-proneness. Fifty-eight nonclinical adults were assessed for jumping-to-conclusions bias using an experimental reasoning task, and need for closure, decisiveness concerning real-life dilemmas, and delusion-proneness using questionnaires. Delusion-proneness was associated independently with need for closure and jumping-to-conclusions bias, with no evidence of a direct relationship between the latter two. These results discount the view that need for closure motivates a jumping-to-conclusions bias, leading, in turn, to delusion-proneness. The various facets of need for closure proved to be independent; while intolerance of ambiguity correlated positively with delusion-proneness, decisiveness correlated negatively. The finding that delusion-prone individuals are more indecisive in everyday life was replicated using different scales. Delusion-proneness is associated independently with jumping-to-conclusions bias on experimental reasoning tasks, intolerance of ambiguity, and indecision concerning real-life dilemmas.

Assessment of resilience in the aftermath of trauma

Resilience is a crucial component in determining the way in which individuals react to and deal with stress. A broad range of features is associated with resilience; these features relate to the strengths and positive aspects of an individual's mental state. In patients with posttraumatic stress disorder, resilience can be used as a measure of treatment outcome, with improved resilience increasing the likelihood of a favorable outcome. Resilience can be monitored using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and perceived vulnerability to the effects of stress can be monitored with the Sheehan Stress Vulnerability Scale. Both scales are well validated, self-rated, easy to use, and easily translatable. Within a short period of time, nonspecialists can be taught to use these in the field.

Childhood sexual abuse and depressive symptom severity: the role of neuroticism

This study examined neuroticism's role in the association between childhood sexual abuse and severity of depressive symptoms in a sample of 105 psychiatric patients 50 years of age and older diagnosed with major depressive disorder. As hypothesized, men and women who reported histories of childhood sexual abuse had more severe depressive symptoms than those without abuse histories. Further, neuroticism partially accounted for the association between severe childhood sexual abuse and depressive symptom severity. Self-consciousness, a facet of neuroticism conceptually related to shame, also partially accounted for that relationship. These findings suggest that neuroticism may be one way in which childhood sexual abuse contributes to depressive symptoms in later life. Prospective studies are needed.

A population-based twin study of the relationship between neuroticism and internalizing disorders

OBJECTIVE

The anxiety and depressive disorders exhibit high levels of lifetime comorbidity with one another. The authors examined how genetic and environmental factors shared by the personality trait neuroticism and seven internalizing disorders may help explain this comorbidity.

METHOD

Lifetime major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia, animal phobia, situational phobia, and neuroticism were assessed in over 9,000 twins from male-male, female-female, and opposite-sex pairs through structured diagnostic interviews. Multivariate structural equation models were used to decompose the correlations between these phenotypes into genetic and environmental components, allowing for sex-specific factors.

RESULTS

Genetic factors shared with neuroticism accounted for between one-third and one-half of the genetic risk across the internalizing disorders. When nonsignificant gender differences were removed from the models, the genetic correlations between neuroticism and each disorder were high, while individual-specific environmental correlations were substantially lower. In addition, the authors could identify a neuroticism-independent genetic factor that significantly increased risk for major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder.

CONCLUSIONS

There is substantial, but not complete, overlap between the genetic factors that influence individual variation in neuroticism and those that increase liability across the internalizing disorders, helping to explain the high rates of comorbidity among the latter. This may have important implications for identifying the susceptibility genes for these conditions.

The Validity of Cloninger's Psychobiological Model Versus the Five-Factor Model to Predict DSM-IV Personality Disorders in a Heterogeneous Psychiatric Sample: Domain Facet and Residualized Facet Descriptions

The validity of Cloninger's psychobiological model and the Five-Factor Model of personality to predict DSM-IV personality disorders was examined in a psychiatric in-patient sample of 130 individuals. Patients completed Dutch authorized versions of the TCI (Cloninger, Svrakic, & Przybeck, 1993) and the NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and were also administered the ADP-IV (Schotte & De Doncker, 1994), a Dutch self-report questionnaire to assess Axis-II disorders. No personality-descriptive model proved to be superior in explaining personality disorder symptoms at the higher-order level: the TCI dimensions better explained the Obsessive-Compulsive and the Narcissistic disorders, whereas the FFM accounted for more variance of the Avoidant disorder. However, differences were apparent at the lower-order level with the NEO facets out performing the TCI subscales for six to four personality disorders. FFM facet-level predictions of Widiger, Trull, Clarkin, Sanderson, and Costa (2002) were partially confirmed, with substantially better results using residualized facet scores. A set of TCI subscale personality disorder relationships is suggested.

Attributional style in the eating disorders

Previous research has shown that patients with eating disorders have a characteristic cognitive bias, making internal attributions when evaluating negative events. However, there is less clarity about their attributions for positive events. There are suggestions that this cognitive style might be influenced by depressed mood. This study examines attributional style in the eating disorders for positive and negative events, independent of covariant effects of depression. Twenty-five eating-disordered women and 26 nonclinical women each completed measures of attributional style, depressed mood, and eating pathology. They also completed a measure of verbal intelligence (to ensure comparability of groups). Women with an eating disorder had a greater tendency to attribute negative situations to the self when compared with nonclinical women, even when differences in depressed mood were controlled for. There were no comparable differences in positive attributional biases. Women with an eating disorder adopt a self-blaming style when evaluating negative events, and such self-blame is likely to contribute to the maintenance of an eating disorder. This suggests that therapy for the eating disorders should include an element that focuses on highlighting and re-evaluating such interpretations.

[Personality types in patients after vertebral surgery]

AIM

To compare personality types in patients after vertebral surgery.

METHOD

74 patients after vertebral surgery were examined with the MPI. 22 patients were operated because of injury. 52 patients were operated because of chronic pain back. The control group consisted of 20 healthy people. Maudsley Personality Inventory created by Eysenck, was used to study personality types.

RESULTS

There were no differences in personality types between patients suffering from chronic back pain and patients operated because of injury. Statistically, a significantly higher score in the N scale was noticed in the group with chronic back pain in comparison to patients operated because of injury and in comparison to the control group.

CONCLUSIONS

A higher score in the N scale observed in patients suffering from chronic back pain, may suggest a specific personality type of those patients. Higher level of neuroticism may create some difficulties in the acceptation of the illness and adaptation process. It is necessary to take special psychological care of those patients.

Is personality a determinant of patient satisfaction with hospital care?

OBJECTIVE

We investigated to what extent personality is associated with patient satisfaction with hospital care. A sizeable association with personality would render patient satisfaction invalid as an indicator of hospital care quality.

DESIGN

Overall satisfaction and satisfaction with aspects of care were regressed on the Big Five dimensions of personality, controlled for patient characteristics as possible explanatory variables of observed associations.

PARTICIPANTS

A total of 237 recently discharged inpatients aged 18-84 years (M = 50, SD = 17 years), 57% female, who were hospitalized for an average of 8 days.

INSTRUMENTS

The Satisfaction with Hospital Care Questionnaire addressing 12 aspects of care ranging from admission procedures to discharge and aftercare and the Five-Factor Personality Inventory assessing a person's standing on Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional stability, and Autonomy.

RESULTS

Agreeableness significantly predicted patient satisfaction in about half of the scales. After controlling for shared variance with age and educational level, the unique contribution of Agreeableness shrank to a maximum of 3-5% explained variance. When one outlier was dropped from the analysis, the contribution of Agreeableness was no longer statistically significant.

CONCLUSION

Patient satisfaction seems only marginally associated with personality, at least at the level of the broad Big Five dimensions.

Occupational Stress and Its Consequences in Healthcare Professionals: The Role of Type D Personality

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of the study was to investigate the role of Type D personality in perceiving stress at work and the development of adverse effects of experienced stress, i.e. mental health disorders and burnout syndrome.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A sample of 79 healthcare professionals (51 psychiatrists and 28 nurses) of a mental hospital in Lódź was eligible for the study. The mean age of the subjects was 39.71 (SD = 8.02) and their work experience was 11.20 (SD = 5.45). The DS-14 self-report to measure Type D personality, the Subjective Work Evaluation Questionnaire, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) were used in the study.

RESULTS

The results of the study confirm a significant role of Type D personality in perceiving job stress and the development of its adverse effects reflected especially in the worsening health condition. Type D subjects perceive their workplace as more stressful than non-Type Ds and manifest more symptoms of mental health disorders and a higher level of burnout, expressed mainly in the form of emotional exhaustion and lower personal accomplishment.

CONCLUSION

Modification of Type D personality aimed at reducing tendency to experience negative emotions and enhancing skills to express them combined with improving social relations is desired to prevent healthcare professionals from adverse health outcomes.

Rating of personality disorder features in popular movie characters

BACKGROUND

Tools for training professionals in rating personality disorders are few. We present one such tool: rating of fictional persons. However, before ratings of fictional persons can be useful, we need to know whether raters get the same results, when rating fictional characters.

METHOD

Psychology students at the University of Copenhagen (N = 8) rated four different movie characters from four movies based on three systems: Global rating scales representing each of the 10 personality disorders in the DSM-IV, a criterion list of all criteria for all DSM-IV personality disorders in random order, and the Ten Item Personality Inventory for rating the five-factor model. Agreement was estimated based on intraclass-correlation.

RESULTS

Agreement for rating scales for personality disorders ranged from 0.04 to 0.54. For personality disorder features based on DSM-IV criteria, agreement ranged from 0.24 to 0.89, and agreement for the five-factor model ranged from 0.05 to 0.88. The largest multivariate effect was observed for criteria count followed by the TIPI, followed by rating scales. Raters experienced personality disorder criteria as the easiest, and global personality disorder scales as the most difficult, but with significant variation between movies.

CONCLUSION

Psychology students with limited or no clinical experience can agree well on the personality traits of movie characters based on watching the movie. Rating movie characters may be a way to practice assessment of personality.

Neuroticism, extraversion, and mortality in a defined population of older persons

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to test the association of the personality traits of neuroticism and extraversion with risk of death in old age.

METHODS

A census was taken of a geographically defined urban community in Chicago, and those aged 65 years or older were invited to participate in an in-home interview; 6158 (79% of those eligible) did so. The interview included brief measures of neuroticism and extraversion, medical history, and questions about current participation in cognitive, social, and physical activities. Vital status was subsequently monitored. The association of each trait with risk of death was examined in a series of accelerated failure-time models that controlled for age, sex, race, and education.

RESULTS

During a mean of more than 6 years of observation, 2430 persons (39.5%) died. A high level of neuroticism (score = 27; 90th percentile) was associated with a 33% increase in risk of death compared with a low level of neuroticism (score = 9; 10th percentile). A high level of extraversion (score = 33; 90th percentile) was associated with a 21% decrease in risk of death compared with a low level (score = 18; 10th percentile). Adjustment for medical conditions and health-related variables did not substantially affect results, but adjusting for baseline levels of cognitive, social, and physical activity reduced the association of both traits with mortality.

CONCLUSIONS

The results suggest that higher extraversion and lower neuroticism are associated with reduced risk of mortality in old age and that these associations are mediated in part by personality-related patterns of cognitive, social, and physical activity.

Relationships between self-reported potentially traumatizing events, psychoform and somatoform dissociation, and absorption, in two non-clinical populations

OBJECTIVE

Some authors have suggested that the personality characteristic 'fantasy proneness' may mediate the correlation between reported potentially traumatizing events and dissociative symptoms. Other authors question the reported magnitude of this correlation in non-clinical samples, because these are usually derived from student samples and may therefore suffer from a restriction of range. The primary aim of this study is to assess the relationship between a self-report measure of traumatization and psychoform dissociation as well as somatoform dissociation in a non-clinical population, while accounting for the influence of fantasy proneness.

METHOD

Two random non-clinical samples, that is, a student and an adult non-student sample, completed a range of relevant self-report questionnaires. Absorption was used as an index of fantasy proneness.

RESULTS

The range of reported potentially traumatizing events was restricted in students, compared to non-students. In both samples a significant correlation was found between reported potentially traumatizing events and dissociation. After partialling out absorption, the relationship between reported potential traumatization and psychoform dissociation diminished substantially in both samples. The magnitude of the correlation with somatoform dissociation decreased to a lesser degree, so that it remained significant in both samples.

CONCLUSIONS

The correlation between somatoform dissociation and reported traumatization, after partialling out absorption, gives a reliable estimate of the magnitude of the relationships between potentially traumatizing events and dissociation. Findings regarding traumatization and dissociation in students should be generalized to the general population cautiously.

Personality and eating disorders: A decade in review

Personality traits have been implicated in the onset, symptomatic expression, and maintenance of eating disorders (EDs). The present article reviews literature examining the link between personality and EDs published within the past decade, and presents a meta-analysis evaluating the prevalence of personality disorders (PDs) in anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and binge eating disorder (BED) as assessed by self-report instruments versus diagnostic interviews. AN and BN are both consistently characterized by perfectionism, obsessive-compulsiveness, neuroticism, negative emotionality, harm avoidance, low self-directedness, low cooperativeness, and traits associated with avoidant PD. Consistent differences that emerge between ED groups are high constraint and persistence and low novelty seeking in AN and high impulsivity, sensation seeking, novelty seeking, and traits associated with borderline PD in BN. The meta-analysis, which found PD rates of 0 to 58% among individuals with AN and BN, documented that self-report instruments greatly overestimate the prevalence of every PD.

Personality differences in schizophrenia are related to performance on neuropsychological tasks

Altered cognition and personality appear to emerge in tandem and adversely affect outcome in schizophrenia, yet little research has been done to determine whether these are related or independent domains. In this study, the relationship between the Big Five personality traits--neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness--and cognitive and motor performance in outpatients with chronic, clinically stable schizophrenia (N = 30) and age-matched healthy comparison subjects (N = 45) was examined. Subjects completed tests of attention, executive and motor functions, and the NEO-Five Factor Personality Inventory. Patients scored significantly higher on neuroticism and lower on extraversion and agreeableness, but after variance due to neuropsychological performance was statistically removed from NEO scale scores, personality dimensions and profiles no longer differed between groups. Neuropsychological performance and demographic variables, but not diagnosis, uniquely accounted for statistically significant amounts of personality variance, and neuropsychological task performance was correlated with personality dimensions in both patients and comparison subjects. These cross-sectional data provide preliminary evidence that personality dysfunction in schizophrenia may be mediated by disease-related changes in cognitive operations, or the neural processes underlying them. Longitudinal studies utilizing more comprehensive measures of neurocognitive performance are needed to define further the relationship between neuropsychological function and personality in schizophrenia.

Associations among sick building syndrome, psychosocial factors, and personality traits

A mailed questionnaire assessed personality traits of a cohort of 194 subjects followed from 1988 to 1998 measured by the Karolinska Scales of Personality and Sense of Coherence Scale, medical symptoms, and 3 VAS scales on Perceived Psychosocial Work Satisfaction. Subjects initially worked in 19 Swedish buildings with indoor environmental problems. There was a relatively high correlation between SOC scores and KSP scale scores (R2=.54 in men and .55 in women), and there was a sex-KSP interaction on the association between the two sets of scores. An increase of symptom score (SC difference) during the follow-up period was associated with higher psychic anxiety (p<.01 for both men and women), higher socialization (p<.01 for men) and lower inhibition of aggression (p<.05 for men), in stepwise multiple linear regression models. Moreover, the perceived satisfaction scores were associated with personality scale scores, and subjects with a higher sense of coherence reported higher work satisfaction (p<.01). In conclusion, personality aspects seem to play an important role for reporting medical symptoms, work satisfaction, work stress, and climate of cooperation at work, but different personality aspects could be important in men and women.

Psychobiological personality dimensions in two environmental-illness patient groups

The aim of the present study was to investigate the psychobiological personality dimensions in two subgroups of patients with environmental illness (EI). Fifty-nine patients, 34 women and 25 men (aged 32-69 years), were referred for symptoms allegedly caused by abnormal sensitivity to either dental fillings (DF; n=26) or electromagnetic fields (EMF; n=33). For the evaluation of personality, the Swedish 238-item version of the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) was used. Compared with a control group, the EMF group scored higher on the temperament dimension Persistence. The DF group scored higher on the TCI subscales Harm Avoidance (fatigability and asthenia) and Self-Directedness (self-acceptance). Women scored higher than men did on the Novelty Seeking and Reward Dependence (RD) dimensions in the DF group and on RD in the control group, indicating an inherited gender difference. No differences were found between men and women in the EMF group. Our results indicate that the high level of persistence found in the EMF group and the high level of fatigability and asthenia in combination with high self-acceptance found in the DF group represent vulnerable personalities. No significant differences were found between the two patient groups, indicating that these groups are quite similar regarding personality. This vulnerability can be expressed as various mental and somatic symptoms, which can be interpreted as EI symptoms by the affected individual.

Aggression and self-esteem: a diary study of children's reactivity to negative interpersonal events

The study employs a daily diary design to assess self-esteem reactivity and its association with children's aggressive behavior. We test the hypothesis that the self-esteem of aggressive children will be more reactive to negative interpersonal events than the self-esteem of nonaggressive children. Results provide partial support for the aggression/reactivity hypothesis. Aggressive children's self-esteem was more reactive to negative peer events but less reactive to negative adult events than the self-esteem of less aggressive children. These findings are discussed in relation to the experimental literature relating self-esteem instability and ego-threat to aggression and in relation to the extensive body of research on childhood aggression. Intervention implications are also considered.

[Re-evaluation of Tsuji's psycholexical study in terms of the Big Five personality factors]

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the psycholexical study by Tsuji (2001) in terms of the Big Five personality factors. First, the study by Tsuji is described after reviewing shortly the history of psycholexical studies in Japan, and the need for the re-evaluation of his result by confirmatory factor rotation is stressed. Second, after obtaining the Factor Parsimony solution for Tsuji's psycholexical data, the application of the orthogonal incomplete procrustes factor rotation method discussed by Browne (1972) and Kashiwagi (1989) is proposed. Finally, the result is examined in terms of the Big Five personality traits. Although some differences appeared compared to the past works in Japanese adjectives for personality traits, the Big Five personality factors hypothesis has been confirmed through the present work in the sense of the markers discussed by Goldberg (1992).

Domain and facet personality predictors of all-cause mortality among Medicare patients aged 65 to 100

OBJECTIVES

Our objectives were to test whether Conscientiousness, the other 4 domains of the Five-Factor Model, and their facets predicted mortality in older, frail individuals.

METHODS

Controlling for demographic and health measures, we used Cox regression to test whether the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness domains predicted all-cause mortality over 5 years in 1076 65- to 100-year-old participants who took part in a Medicare Demonstration study. Supplementary analyses on 597 participants aged 66 to 102 who were reassessed 2 years later were conducted to determine whether any of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) facets were related to mortality.

RESULTS

When personality domains were treated as continuous variables, NEO-FFI Neuroticism and Agreeableness were significant protective factors. When personality domains were trichotomized, NEO-FFI Conscientiousness was a protective factor. In a third analysis, Agreeableness was not a significant predictor in a model that included the continuous Neuroticism and trichotomized Conscientiousness variables. Analysis of the NEO-PI-R Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness factors showed that Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were protective and that there was a trend for a similar effect of Neuroticism. Facet-level analyses revealed that the Impulsiveness, Straightforwardness, and Self-Discipline facets of Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, respectively, were prospectively related to greater survival over a 3-year interval.

CONCLUSION

The effects of Neuroticism and Agreeableness on mortality are inconsistent across previous studies. This study indicates that, in a sample of older, frail participants, high Neuroticism and Agreeableness scores are protective and that more specific effects are primarily the result of the Impulsiveness and Straightforwardness facet scales. The Conscientiousness findings are consistent with those in earlier studies and demonstrate the importance of the Self-Discipline facet.