title: Type D personality and all-cause mortality in cardiac patients--data from a German cohort study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Type D personality has been established as a predictor of adverse clinical events in patients with cardiovascular diseases. To date, all studies except one have been conducted by a single research group. Thus, the aim of our study was to provide an independent replication of the results regarding the prognostic validity of Type D personality in a German sample of cardiac patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cardiac patients (n = 1040) were recruited from cardiac rehabilitation centers (n = 484), an outpatient clinic (n = 249), and a university hospital (n = 307). Main analyses were based on the combined data from these three subsamples. Cardiac health status, medical risk factors, sociodemographic characteristics, psychological symptoms, and Type D personality were assessed at baseline. The primary end point was all-cause mortality. The Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to estimate the relative risk of death.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Vital status was known for 977 patients (22.5% women; mean [standard deviation] = 63.3 [10.7] years). Within the follow-up time (mean [standard deviation] = 71.5 [3.6] months), 172 patients died. Type D personality was found in 25.2% of survivors and in 22.2% of nonsurvivors (χ²= 0.78, p = .38). Depressive symptoms (p = .13) and anxiety (p = .27) were also not predictive of mortality. In the multivariate analyses, neither Type D (p = .95) nor negative affectivity (p = .71) and social inhibition (p = .59), as well as their interaction (p = .88), were associated with all-cause mortality.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In the present study, Type D personality and its constituents are not associated with increased mortality in patients with heart disease. The discrepancies with previous results deserve further investigation.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Applied Social Sciences, Leipzig University of Applied Sciences, PO Box 301166, 04251 Leipzig, Germany. grande@fas.htwk-leipzig.de
authors.forename: Gesine
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Grande
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Romppel
authors.forename: Jana-Marie
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Vesper
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schubmann
authors.forename: Heide
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Glaesmer
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Herrmann-Lingen
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000401:mortality / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D010551:Personality / Q000502:physiology; D010555:Personality Inventory; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales