title: Personality and mortality from ischemic heart disease and stroke.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The role of personality in the causation of circulatory diseases has been controversial.
  
  
  METHODS
  From June through August 1990, 41,442 residents of Miyagi Prefecture in northern Japan completed the Japanese version of the short-form Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised and another questionnaire on various health habits. During 11 years of follow-up until March 31, 2001, we identified 90 deaths from ischemic heart disease (IHD) and 131 deaths from stroke. We used Cox regression to estimate the relative risk of IHD and stroke according to the three levels of four personality subscales (extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and lie), with adjustment for sex, age, and other potentially confounding variables.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Multivariate relative risks of IHD for the highest verses the lowest level of personality subscales were 0.7 for extraversion, 1.1 for neuroticism, 1.3 for psychoticism, and 0.8 for lie. Multivariate relative risks of stroke for the highest verses the lowest level of personality subscales were 1.0 for extraversion, 0.9 for neuroticism, 1.2 for psychoticism, and 1.2 for lie.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This prospective study does not support the hypothesis that personality is a risk factor for mortality from IHD and stroke.
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health and Forensic Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan. nakaya-thk@umin.ac.jp
authors.forename: Naoki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nakaya
authors.forename: Yoshitaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tsubono
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hosokawa
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hozawa
authors.forename: Shinichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kuriyama
authors.forename: Shin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fukudo
authors.forename: Ichiro
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tsuji
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017202:Myocardial Ischemia / Q000401:mortality* / Q000523:psychology*; D010551:Personality; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D012424:Rural Population; D020521:Stroke / Q000401:mortality* / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D015996:Survival Rate / Q000639:trends