Type D Personality and Big Five Personality Traits and the Risk of Breast Cancer: A Case-Control Study

ObjectiveThe goal of this study is to establish the differences in Type D personality and Big five personality traits between a group of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients and a group of controls. MethodsA comparative study of breast cancer patients and women without previous history of cancer was carried out. We used Type D Scale-14 as an instrument for the assessment of the type-D personality pattern and NEO-FFI for the assessment of the Big Five personality traits. Conditional logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were applied for breast cancer by personality trait factors. ResultsNegative affectivity (NA) (OR = 4.45 95% CI: 1.96-10.61), neuroticism HIGH (OR = 3.97, 95% CI: 1.08-15.81), openness to experience HIGH (OR = 3.47 95% CI: 1.11-11.49), were associated factors significantly related to an increased risk of breast cancer, whereas Social Inhibition (SI) was associated factor with a decreased risk of breast cancer (OR = 0.40 95% CI: 0.16-0.92). ConclusionsThis was the first case-control study which analyzed NA and SI traits in breast cancer patients. SI as a breast-cancer risk decreasing factor might indicate that expressing negative emotions is not always a healthy mechanism of their regulation.

Automated summary

This study found that factors significantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer include negative affectivity, high neuroticism, and high openness to experience, while social inhibition was associated with a decreased risk of breast cancer.